Q&As
by Madeline Shier, May 16, 2023 9:48 AM
You live in Seattle now, but you grew up in the Portland area, right?
I did grow up here, in one of the “historic” parts of West Linn—and among the shelves at Powell's, too! My dad had a tradition: every year, one of my birthday presents was the pledge of $10 a month to spend at Powell's. I stretched that out over so many used paperbacks, I think I had the biggest Nancy Drew collection at my grade school. I remember spending hours in the kids' section with my deeply hideous coke-bottle glasses, crouched on one of those round metal stepstools...
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Lists
by Madeline Shier, May 4, 2023 9:03 AM
There comes a point in every young person’s life where they need to make an important decision: where will they go to study magic?
While excellent students from a variety of academies and programs have been sharing their experiences for years — Ged’s adventures at The School of Wizardry on Roke Island in A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Cat Chant’s training at Chrestomanci Castle in Charmed Life (1977), etc. — it’s impossible to deny that a particular institution has dominated the conversation...
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Lists
by Kim Tano and Madeline Shier, March 16, 2022 8:48 AM
Censorship has been all over the news lately, with multiple states proposing legislation to limit and ban books in schools and libraries (and even more challenges at smaller local levels). While this particular wave of challenges is larger and more notable than most, it’s far from the first. The American ...
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Lists
by Kim Tano and Madeline Shier, February 16, 2022 9:06 AM
This Black History Month, we’re highlighting some of our favorite children’s books published in the past year and written or illustrated by Black creators. Some of these titles are lauded and award-winning; others may have slipped through the cracks but deserve recognition and acclaim of their own. We’re happy to present fourteen titles that we recommend for all libraries, classrooms, and personal shelves.
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Lists
by Kim Tano and Madeline Shier, October 25, 2021 8:11 AM
This Halloween may not quite be back to 2019 “normal,” but we’re looking forward to masked trick-or-treaters at our doors instead of the very cool candy pulley system we hooked up in 2020. Here in Oregon, we have a deep and abiding love of this spookiest of seasons — we go to Sauvie Island to pick pumpkins, visit Spirit of Halloweentown in St. Helens (and of course rewatch the Disney Channel original movies filmed there), and bring our umbrellas trick-or-treating. Our favorite Halloween pastime, however, has always been curling up under the covers with a flashlight and a good, scary read!
We’ve chosen 13 (naturally) of our spookiest favorites to chill your spines and shiver your timbers...
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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...
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Lists
by Kim Tano and Madeline Shier, June 11, 2021 8:57 AM
2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewell uprising, demonstrations against the 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn gay bar. That uprising was a watershed moment in LGBTQ+ history, and led to annual Pride celebrations in the month of June. As cities around the U.S. and the world tentatively reopen for Pride celebrations this year, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate the visible growth in LGBTQ+ titles available for kids and teens.
Where in the past we've had to make due with a few old faithful standards ( Heather Has Two Mommies continues to be a nostalgic classic), we're thrilled that in recent years, and this year in particular, we had a difficult time narrowing our list of recommended LGBTQ+ kids’ and teen titles. We're especially thrilled to see more and more unique identities, intersectional identities, and Own Voices narratives represented on these shelves...
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Lists
by Kim Tano and Madeline Shier, April 26, 2021 11:21 AM
Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, the TV adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels (namely, the eponymous Shadow and Bone and the first of its sequel series, Six of Crows), dropped on April 23, and if you’re reading this blog post, I think it’s fair to assume that you’ve already binged it all. I certainly did, and as I sit here surrounded by the carnage of popcorn husks, candy wrappers, and empty soda cans, I find myself hungry instead for other reads to fill the void now that it’s done.
If you, too, have devoured Leigh Bardugo’s works and are looking to fill out your TBR pile with more dark fantasy; with more intricate magic systems and deft world-building; with more clever thieves, complex villains, and fated heroes who turn destiny on its head — well, Kim and I have the perfect titles to tide you over until the (presumed) second season of Shadow and Bone...
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