P&P Live! Leslie C. Youngblood: Forever This Summer with Jewell Parker Rhodes

Tue Jul 06 2021 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm

online | Online

Politics and Prose Bookstore
Publisher/HostPolitics and Prose Bookstore
P&P Live! Leslie C. Youngblood: Forever This Summer with Jewell Parker Rhodes
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Georgiana Matthews is an 11-year-old Black girl from Georgia who is obliged to spend her summer away from her best friend in the small town of Bogalusa, Louisiana, helping care for an aunt with Alzheimer’s Disease. Her family members are always occupied with caregiving tasks and running the family’s diner. Georgie wants to venture out of the home to find her own adventures, but she is held back by her overprotective mother. When she is finally allowed to explore, she meets Markie Jean, a foster kid with troublemaking tendencies who’d previously been under her aunt’s care. Georgie’s summer in small-town Louisiana blooms into full color with Markie at her side. Together they investigate the mystery of Markie’s missing birth mother and learn about activism when they plan a talent show to raise money for Alzheimer’s. Their quests will ultimately lead Georgie to uncover surprising truths about herself and her own history. Young readers will take away messages of family unity, the power of friendship and importance of doing the right thing. Forever This Summer is a summer read with substance and heart.
Leslie C. Youngblood received an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A former assistant professor of creative writing at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, she has lectured at Mississippi State University, UNC-Greensboro, and the University of Ghana at Legon. She's been awarded a host of writing honors, including a 2014 Yaddo's Elizabeth Ames Residency, the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize, a Hurston Wright Fellowship, and the Room of Her Own Foundation's 2009 Orlando Short Story Prize. In 2010 she won the Go On Girl! Book Club Aspiring Writer Award. Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and raised in Rochester, she's fortunate to have a family of natural storytellers and a circle of supportive family and friends. Love Like Sky was her first novel.
Jewell Parker Rhodes is the author of Ninth Ward, winner of a Coretta Scott King Honor; Sugar, winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award; and the New York Times-bestselling Ghost Boys; as well as Bayou Magic; Towers Falling; Black Brother, Black Brother; and Paradise on Fire. She has written many award-novels for adults, including, Magic City, a novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Jewell is the Virginia G. Piper Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Arizona State University, and the driving force behind all of her work is to inspire social justice, equality, and environmental stewardship.
Tokeya C. Graham will moderate. Tokeya has helped get 900+ copies of Leslie’s first book, Love Like Sky, out in the community. She is a Black Literature/English professor at Monroe College and a Diversity & Inclusion Specialist.
Ages 9-13
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Online

Tickets

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