Last week, booksellers from all around the country converged on Portland, OR for a conference on children’s books and bookselling, hosted by the American Booksellers Association. Some lucky participants registered for half-day and full-day bus tours of Portland area independent bookstores, hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood for 20-30 minute drop-ins (Woefully short!). Here are some …
This book has earned Jennifer Longo a place on my must-read list. Longo has a knack for capturing the emotional roller coaster of life-changing events; she did it with Six Feet Over It and maybe even more powerfully here. Additionally, it’s nice to have a ballet story for teens that doesn’t focus on body dysmorphia …
As I write this, we are two days away from the deadline for nominations for the PNBA Book Awards and five days out from our Committee meeting at the Fall Show to start the process of winnowing down the list. Well, winnowing it down further. We’ve already eliminated nearly seventy titles, which leaves us with …
It’s June and the weather here has been lovely–well, until today, which is cool and gray and occasionally rainy–and my thoughts have been on summertime. I don’t really do summertime things, being more of an indoors sort of person, but I like the idea of summertime things like gardening and barbecues and block parties and …
A gorgeous spring day, a recently relocated indie bookstore to explore and a favorite author on stage—my bookloving family was very lucky to have an unrelated agenda item on the calendar, putting us in Portland, May 2, for the inaugural Independent Bookstore Day, and we took advantage of the synchronicity. Coming up on 41 years next month, …
Well, it’s begun. The first of the nominees for the 2016 PNBA Book Awards has arrived in my mailbox. Which means I am now in my last few weeks of being able to read books for any other reason. Which gets me all in a panic because I don’t know what to read first and …
A Children’s Place Bookstore (ACPB) just celebrated its 40th birthday last June, commemorated its grand re-opening last weekend, and today is still Portland’s oldest and most beloved independent children’s bookstore. I visited owner Pam Erlandson and her team during the grand re-opening festivities on Saturday, March 14 and here’s what I learned. Why the Move As …
It’s just gone March and I’m reading for May. Which, really, isn’t that far out, but it gets frustrating when the awesome book you just finished would be perfect for the customer who just asked you for a recommendation. I love being able to read books ahead of publication, but I wish my memory was …
We’re delighted that Red Tricycle Portland highlighted six Portland-area bookstores for their kid-friendliness in a recent post, “6 Great Bookstores for Pint Sized Bookworms”. Red Tricycle, which has city-specific sites for nine cities (including Seattle) as well as a national focus site, declares that its mission is “to help parents have more fun with their kids.” …
One of the delights of working with teachers in training is sharing their sense of newness. Just like elementary students starting a new grade in September, would-be teachers come to the field of education with excitement and—most promising of all—hope. We all know that teachers face grave obstacles these days—cutbacks, large class sizes and the …
