Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

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This is my #home square for CBR13 bingo.  Home Before Dark was incredibly fun to read! It reminds me of the kind of meta consideration of true crime documentary subjects in a book I recently reviewed, Every Last Fear. This time, it’s a meta consideration of the subjects of a haunted house book.  Along the lines of Amityville Horror, the book at the center of this narrative tells the story of a small family who moved into a large estate called Baneberry Hall in Vermont. […]

Get your red hot and garlic and BBQ and oh so much more crickets here

Chirp by Kate Messner

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Chirp is an age appropriate (10-14) book dealing with some heavy subjects.  But overall, they are presented respectfully and are accessible to all readers. There were a few bumps in the plot for me, but I felt it was a decent story and for certain the style that you have come to expect from the author. Kate Messner writes about Mia, a young girl moving back to Vermont after several years living in Boston. Her parents and she have come back to help her grandmother […]

“When the mist rises, and the smiling man comes walking, you must avoid large places at night.”

Small Spaces by Arden, Katherine

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Ollie hasn’t been much of a people-person, but since her mother died the only solace she can seem to find is in books.  On a bike ride home from school, she comes across a woman sobbing by the lake, trying to talk herself into throwing an old black book into the water.  On a whim, Ollie steals the book and discovers within its pages a strange and spooky old story about the Webster family and their tragedy brought on by a sinister “smiling man.” The […]

YAY TO MY FRIEND BETH KANELL! (Yes, little name dropping there!)

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First: YAY TO MY FRIEND BETH KANELL! She has created another novel for history and Vermont buffs. Long story how I meet her, but she and I have talked books, poetry and life in general and I cannot wait to talk The Long Shadow with her as well. Second: The Long Shadow is set in North Upton, Vermont in 1850. She deals with abolition, bounty hunters and hiding fugitives of the escaped slave kind. Her narrator, Alice, is a young teen girl, growing up in […]

“Got a whale of a tale to tell ya, lads A whale of a tale or two…”

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I have one word for Charlotte’s Bones: The Beluga Whale in a Farmer’s Field by Erin Rounds (and illustrations by Allison Carver), “WOW” But I guess I better expand by saying this is a great book for kids that are into science or a fun way to introduce natural science to all ages. It is told from the point of view of an all-knowing narrator that knows what is happening to the beluga whale, later to be known as Charlotte. She was caught 11,000 years […]

The Spooky Express series is coming to town

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The Spooky Express: Vermont by Eric James and Marcin Piwowarski is an introduction to the state (in this one Vermont) and the monsters of Halloween. The kids hop on the train like The Polar Express and off they go. It is meant for the younger crowd, due to the innocence of the text of James and illustrations of Piwowarski. Each book in the series is in the rhyming text and format of The Night Before Christmas rhyme.   The overall look and idea of the […]



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