Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Rhianna Walton, August 9, 2021 9:04 AM
This week we're taking a closer look at Powell's Pick of the Month Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette.
I used to walk past a blue convent on my way to the Nature’s on Division, hoping to glimpse an urban sister on the lawn. Nuns are so rare in the modern American every-day that sighting them is thrilling and improbable, like finding a bald eagle. A black flap of the habit isn’t unlike the rush of wings; its possessor is unknowable, a container for the feelings of the viewer.
Claire Luchette’s winning novel, Agatha of Little Neon, brings the reader beyond voyeurism into the mind of 29-year-old Agatha, who, with her three sisters, finds herself working in Little Neon, a Mountain Dew-colored halfway house in Woonsocket, Rhode Island...
|
Original Essays
by Courtney Gould, August 3, 2021 11:11 AM
Since I was in middle school, I’ve wanted to be a published author. What person doesn’t, as a child, dream of creating something that changes lives? It didn’t matter how I changed lives; I wanted to elicit the kinds of reactions I had to my favorite books and shows. I wanted to devastate people. I wanted to make them really feel something. I took writing classes in middle school, wrote like mad in high school, posted my work in online forums, exchanged rough drafts with friends in hopes of satiating my need for an audience. When I got to college in 2012, I was fairly certain I was on the right path. I knew what I wanted to do, I’d practiced, and all I needed was the degree. But in my first-ever college writing class, I was asked a question that changed my entire outlook on writing...
|
Lists
by Rhianna Walton, July 27, 2021 2:09 PM
Whether it’s daycare at the YMCA or a fancy sleepaway camp tucked in the Adirondacks, few kids escape childhood summers without at least a brush with bug spray, ill-fitting camp T-shirts, and singalongs. I attended and taught at camps, and while I can’t say I miss the soggy cabin days when it rained or the terrible lunches, there is something magical about summer-only friendships, arts and crafts afternoons, and the inevitable tangle of urban legends shared around the campfire.
This kids’ and teen list is for all the summer camp lovers, haters, and sentimental readers out there. Enjoy it with a cup of bug juice.
|
Lists
by Jeremy Garber, July 22, 2021 11:39 AM
With the summer season in full swing (and the potent portent of late June’s record-setting PNW temperatures seared into memory), hopefully this month brings a repose figurative, literal, and literary. What could pair better with kulfi, Halo-Halo, affogato, cholados, paletas, cendol, or Snoopy sno-cones than 9 newly translated titles (and a bonus biography)? Whether an outstanding Colombian story collection, a Senegalese debut of fundamentalism and revolt, new fiction from a Romanian exile, the conclusion to a powerful Norwegian trilogy, a Brazilian work which led Junot Díaz to ask, “How can a novel so wrenching be so sublime?”, or any of the other books on this month’s list, each pick is guaranteed to slake your world book thirst...
|
Ask Aunt Paige
by Aunt Paige, July 20, 2021 9:15 AM
Happy late July, my sweet, advice-seeking gumdrops! I had planned on a "dog days of summer" column for this month, but
received so many interesting questions about reading and disability that it seemed fitting to do a Disability Pride
Month theme instead. Below, you'll find my favorite questions about books and techniques for people who struggle with
reading and focus and a breakdown of disability theory. I learned a lot while researching the answers for this
month's post, and I hope you find it as illuminating as I did.
÷ ÷ ÷
Dear Aunt Paige,
An 11-year-old family member has learning problems. She's reading at a second-grade level now, but still struggles.
I like to send books to the children in my family for their special occasions, but am having difficulty finding books
that not only appeal to her age but also meet her special needs.
What can you suggest?
Sincerely,
An anxious auntie...
|
Interviews
by Rhianna Walton, July 19, 2021 3:28 PM
Portland-based writer Omar El Akkad’s latest work, What Strange Paradise, is a beautiful, angry novel about the migrant crisis in Europe. Expertly teasing out the strings of exile, pride, greed, trauma, longing, and hope that entangle his diverse characters, El Akkad makes clear indictments without sacrificing the complex emotions of the “bad” actors — the smugglers, the Greek islanders struggling with an influx of migrants, the apathetic tourists, a nationalistic and traumatized military. Simultaneously a narrative of hope and a devastating portrait of what is happening in our world, right now, What Strange Paradise is an example of how fiction at its best does more to explicate and illuminate the challenges we face than any newspaper headline or documentary could accomplish. It was a pleasure to speak with El Akkad about What Strange Paradise and his take on the interplay between politics and fiction...
|
Lists
by Keith Mosman and Sarah Reif, July 14, 2021 8:31 AM
We had so much fun writing last year’s list of bingeable book-to-screen adaptations that we decided to task two of the most prolific readers and pop culture consumers on our staff with the sequel. Keith and Sarah break down nine excellent films and TV series based on popular books for kids, teens, and adults.
÷ ÷ ÷
KEITH'S PICKS FOR ADULTS
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Adapted from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield was Dickens’s most personal novel, and arguably his best (Virginia Woolf, for one, thought so). Still, it’s hard to make a Dickens adaptation feel personal or pleasant; there are already so many that they form their own cliché-ridden subgenre. I mean, I usually don’t want to watch an Englishman with a nasal voice in a sooty top hat be mean to children (not even if he’s singing at the time)...
|
Lists
by Kim Tano and Madeline Shier, July 9, 2021 10:27 AM
Disability Pride Month isn’t yet nationally recognized, but a number of cities across the country hold annual Disability Pride parades in July, the month in which the Americans with Disabilities Act was first signed into law in 1990. That same year Boston hosted the first Disability Pride Day.
For Disability Pride Month 2021, we have put together a collection of children’s and teen books that honor people of various abilities. For more titles for young people that honor the disability experience in literature, we recommend books from the Schneider Family Book Awards list presented by the American Library Association Youth Media Awards...
|
Q&As;
by Elias Rodriques, June 29, 2021 3:57 PM
Photo credit: Jourdan Christopher
What led you to write this book?
I began writing this book just after a good friend of mine from high school passed away in the fall of 2015. I had not been in touch with the friend in years at the time of her passing, and I didn’t expect her death to devastate me; after all, we hadn’t really been friends, not in the sense that friends are people who talk, in a long time. But the day I heard the news, my mood dropped. Over the next while, I didn’t want to talk to anyone or go outside or go to work. I just wanted to stay in my room and watch TV, which I didn’t even like doing. Whenever I went outside, I fantasized about sneaking away without telling anyone, about hopping on a local bus to 30th Street Station and then a long-distance bus to some city where I didn’t know anyone...
|
Ask Aunt Paige
by Aunt Paige, June 24, 2021 10:29 AM
Summer vacation started about a week ago, and if your life is anything like that of the parents I know, it's become a montage to the tune of "I'm bored. I want a snack. I'm booorrred. Can I have a popsicle? I'm boooorrreeed." Beautiful and soothing though this tune is, you need a respite (if not a margarita) and Aunt Paige is here for you.
Summertime is the ideal time to invest in a hammock and a stack of books. But kids' books and getting kids reading aren't challenge-free subjects. Here are some of the most common questions I get asked about what children should read and when...
|