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Minnesota Book Awards finalists are announced

Minnesota Book Awards logo
Bobrowsky, Tammy L
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The 2025 Minnesota Book Awards will be announced April 22, 2025.

Forty books by Minnesota authors are finalists for the 2025 Minnesota Book Awards, including in a variety of fiction categories, nonfiction, poetry and anthology.

Forty books written by Minnesota authors are finalists for the 2025 Minnesota Book Awards, according to the Friends of the St. Paul Library website.

Judges from across the state met Saturday, Jan. 25, and chose four finalists in each category. After a final round of judging the winners will be announced at the annual ceremony April 22 at the Ordway in St. Paul.

The categories include Children's Literature, General Nonfiction, Genre Fiction, Memoir & Creative Nonfiction, Middle Grade Literature, the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, Novel & Short Story, Poetry, Young Adult Literature, and new this year: Anthology.

The finalists are listed below.

*Indicates a Minnesota publisher

Anthology

  • Dreaming our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiņ Artists and Knowledge Keepers, edited by Brenda J. Child & Howard Oransky (University of Minnesota Press)*
  • Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces, edited by Margret Aldrich & Michelle Filkins (Spout Press)*
  • Raised by Wolves: Fifty Poets on Fifty Poems, edited by Carmen Gimenez & Jeff Shotts (Graywolf Press)*
  • When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology, edited by Shannon Gibney & Nicole Chung (HarperTeen/HarperCollins Publishers)

Children's Literature

  • Mr. Fox's Game of "No!" by David LaRochelle; illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka (Candlewick Press)
  • The Rock in My Throat, by Kao Kalia Yang; illustrated by Jiemei Lin (Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group)*
  • Snow Steps, by Karen Latchana Kenney; illustrated by Irina Avgustinovich, (WorthyKids/Hachette Book Group)
  • What Lolo Wants, by Cristina Oxtra; illustrated by Jamie Bauza (Kids Can Press)

General Nonfiction

  • The College Student's Guide to Mental Health, by Mia Nosanow (New World Library)
  • The New Science of Social Change: A Modern Handbook for Activists, by Lisa Mueller (Beacon Press)
  • Red Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms, by Jokeda "JoJo" Bell (Minnesota Historical Society Press)*
  • We Are the Evidence: A Handbook for Finding Your Way After Sexual Assault, by Cheyenne Wilson (Balance/Grand Central Publishing)

Genre Fiction

  • Big in Sweden, by Sally Franson (Mariner Books/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Monsters We Have Made, by Lindsay Starck (Vintage Books/Penguin Random House)
  • Where They Last Saw Her, by Marcie Rendon (Bantam/Penguin Random House)
  • The Witches of Santo Stefano, by Wendy Webb (Lake Union Publishing/Amazon Publishing)
Minnesota writer Marcie Rendon’s engaging thriller “Where They Last Saw Her” highlights community and the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, or MMIW.

Memoir & Creative Nonfiction

  • Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden, by Teresa Peterson (University of Minnesota Press)*
  • Sticky Notes: Memorable Lessons from Ordinary Moments, by Matt Eicheldinger (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
  • When Skies Are Gray: A Grieving Mother's Lullaby, by Lindsey Henke (She Writes Press)
  • Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother's Life, by Kao Kalia Yang (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)

Middle Grade Literature

  • The Diamond Explorer, by Kao Kalia Yang (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
  • Not Quite a Ghost, by Anne Ursu (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Samira's Worst Best Summer, by Nina Hamza (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Telephone of the Tree, by Alison McGhee (Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Random House)
Among the books children's librarian Tracy Kampa reviews include Anne Ursu's Not Quite a Ghost .

Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction

  • Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America, by Sonja Trom Eayrs (Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press)
  • It Took Courage: Eliza Winston's Quest for Freedom, by Christopher P. Lehman (Minnesota Historical Society Press)*
  • The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America, by Michelle S. Phelps (Princeton University Press)
  • To Banish Forever: A Secret Society, the Ho-Chunk, and Ethnic Cleansing in Minnesota, by Cathy Coats (Minnesota Historical Society Press)*

Novel & Short Story

  • The French Winemaker's Daughter, by Loretta Ellsworth (Harper Paperbacks/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • In Wells' Time, by David Nash (Unsolicited Press)
  • The Mighty Red, by Louise Erdrich (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Obligations to the Wounded, by Mubanga Kalimamukwento (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Poetry

  • Bluff, by Danez Smith (Graywolf Press)*
  • Birthing Butterflies, by Claudia May (Finishing Line Press)
  • Run From Your Now, by Ben Westlie (Kelsay Books)
  • Theophanies, by Sarah Ghazal Ali (Alice James Books)

Young Adult Literature

  • Dispatches from Parts Unknown, by Bryan Bliss (Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Rules for Camouflage, by Kristin Cronn-Mills (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette Book Group)
  • We Got the Beat, by Jenna Miller (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Where Wolves Don't Die, by Anton Treuer (Arthur Levine/Levine Querido)
The acclaimed Bemidji author and Ojibwe professor’s debut novel is part coming-of-age, part thriller, set in Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

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Tammy Bobrowsky works at Bemidji State University's library. She hosts "What We're Reading," a show about books and authors, and lends her talents as a volunteer DJ.