Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How Mama Tree and the Forest woke Little Pin

Wake Up, Little Pin!: The Story of a Sleepy Sapling by Loretta Garbutt

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Wake Up, Little Pin!: The Story of a Sleepy Sapling by Loretta Garbutt and illustrated by  Marianne Ferrer came out in mid-March of 2024. However, I did not learn about it until August of that year. I found an online reader copy and it sounded interesting, but I was not sure at first if I wanted to read it. After a bit I said, why not read a book about a tree? I like trees. I like nature (as long as I’m not in it […]

Free Spirit Publishing has some neat books

Thank You, Night by Dan McCauley

Thank You, Rain by Dan McCauley

B Is for Belonging by Shannon Anderson

Hello, Beech Tree! by Rasha Hamid

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A while back I saw two online reader copies that had intriguing covers (or thumbnails of the cover as it was only a small image). I liked them, but figured I knew what they were about by judging the cover. Thank You, Night and Thank You, Rain looked like they would be nice father and child stories. One set at night and one set in/around a rainy day. And I was not wrong. (Yes, I read them eventually.) They had more to them than those […]

Sky things

Paul the Peacock by Tilly Matthews

Little Cloud's Big Dream by Ixtzel Arreola

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Booktalk ain’t got nothing on me! It only has to open its mouth and insert words into the air! But I must take my fingers to the computer keyboard and type!  Now, granted, I type fairly quickly, but that old school click click tells me I’m having an overload of words! Therefore, I will just let you dive into the reviews I am giving you today.  Paul the Peacock by Tilly Matthews is pretty straight forward. There is a peacock; his name is Paul; and […]

I’m not cold, just my habitat

Cold by Tim McCanna

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Cold is different for everyone. Poetry is different for everyone. And in Tim McCanna’s picture book, Cold, we get a lovely, lush illustrated book that has a story within the art as well as complimenting the text that deals with both subjects. The poetry is how the rhyming text with each page gives us a short burst of poetic information about how in cold there is life and how the cold itself is a character that moves about, leading us to the different places the […]

She blinded me with science… stories in rhyme

Meet the Universe: I'm a Black Hole by Eve M. Vavagiakis

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I’m a Black Hole by Eve M. Vavagiakis and Jessica Lanan being the illustrator, is currently available, but I read via an online reader copy. And I think twice. This might sound like, since I can’t remember it, that I did not like it, and maybe the first time it didn’t “grab my attention,” but this time around I appreciated it more. And that is why I should allow myself to read again, but there are so many new books out there. Like I’m a […]

A winter walk

A Quiet Conversation with the Snow by Lori Colvin

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A Quiet Conversation with the Snow by Lori Colvin and illustrated by Lee Steadman has a few tones and levels to it. The first thing I noticed was the repetition of the images. There is a lot of white and blue. When other colors come out, it is usually red and specifically the red of a male cardinal. This bird is on almost every page, allowing for the listener (and reader) to find it. Sometimes it is obvious and is the center of the back […]



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