Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Parent Trap meets Freaky Friday without the magic but lots of music

Mirror to Mirror by Rajani LaRocca

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Awhile back I found a reader copy by Rajani LaRocca called Mirror to Mirror. I was interested in it due to the diverse characters and the prose poetry format.  However, as I started reading (at lunch) it was going slowly, and I put it aside. I picked it up months later and was able to finish it finally. It was mostly worth the wait. I say mostly, as for me, there were a few bumps. I was not a fan of some characters, and a […]

Another Delightful Middle-Grade Graphic Novel Wins My Heart

Twins by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright

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Twins is a fun read and one I have now owned two copies of, so I am hanging on to this one so I don’t have to buy a third! Maureen and Francine have always been together in the same class but now, as they enter middle school, they’ve been separated in all but two classes. Maureen, who is shyer, wants them to be in the same classes, but Francine seems thrilled to have time away from her twin. Maureen also has the added misery of […]

Let’s go to sleep

The Dreamway by Lisa Papademetriou

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I do not remember how I found out about The Dreamway by Lisa Papademetriou but find it I did, and an interlibrary loan is how it came to be in my possession. I would have loved this as a 10-to 13-year-old. The story is cute, but not overly cutesy. There is enough fantasy to grab the fantasy reader, but enough reality to grab them, too. The sibling story is interesting. The narrator’s disability does not come into play a lot (and in fact could be […]

The struggle between who you are and who you want to be

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett was another Mocha Girls Read pick. I definitely would not have read it without the book club impetus. To no surprise, as indicated by this annual onslaught of reviews, I procrastinated reading it. I ended up reading most of it in one day. It was well worth the time and exceeded my expectations. The novel centers on two Black twin sisters who run away from a small Black community.  The town prides itself on being a close-knit town for […]

Cute in a not eat your face way

Fly by Night by Tara O’Connor.

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Thanks to my holiday book exchange, I had a chance to pick up Fly by Night by Tara O’Connor.  I had started a sampler awhile back and thought it would be slightly on the slower side, but still it was a fascinating concept. Twin sisters, one who has gone missing, and spooky felt right.  And yes, it was not super-fast pace, but kept things moving. The idea of true supernature never came into play for those few pages, but it quickly does once you get […]

“When you’re twins, the magic just never ends” (Little Richard, Philip Bailey)

Twins: A Graphic Novel by Varian Johnson

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Twins: A Graphic Novel has two main elements that make it both familiar and new. Varian Johnson does the “twin thing” (two sisters who are best friends, know each other in ways even their parents cannot know, and are each other’s “partner in crime/fear/whatever is needed), but then makes a new twist with having a modern touch with a blended family of color. The story is simple: Two sisters; almost identical (one is slightly taller; this one has a scar) and best friends. That is […]



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