His work includes March, the graphic novel autobiography of Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis; You Don't Say, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole, The Silence Of Our Friends, The Year Of The Beasts, and Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero. Powell's work has received a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, two Eisner Awards, two Ignatz Awards, two Harvey Awards, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award, four YALSA Great Graphic Novels For Teens selections, a Best American Comics selection, and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist in Young Adult Fiction.