The finalists for this year’s Minnesota Book Awards — 36 books in nine categories — were announced Saturday afternoon. Minneapolis writer Sun Yung Shin was a finalist in his two categories, Poetry and Children’s Literature. Winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony on May 2nd at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul.
Finalists are:
young adult, Sponsored by Expeditionary Credit Union:
“Mendel” by Damone Bestor (The Story Plant). “Maxwell and the Legend of Inini-Makwa” by Simon Hargreaves (AHR Publishing). “Born in the Red Canoe” by Katherine Johnson (Silver Fox Books). “Carl Paulsen’s Complex Calculus (and Ox)” by Gary Eldon Peter (Fitzroy Books).
Children’s Literature:
“You Are Life” by Bao Phi, illustrated by Hannah Lee (Capstone Editions). “So Much Snow” by Kristen Schroeder, illustrated by Sarah Jacoby (Random House Studios). ‘The Dark Was Done’ by Lauren Stringer (Beach Lane Books). “Where We Come From” by Diane Wilson, Sun Yung Shin, Shannon Gibney and John Coy, illustrated by Dion MBD (Carolrhoda Books).
Intermediate, Sponsored by Education Minnesota:
“Monsters in the Mist” by Juliana Brandt (Sourcebooks). “Meet Me Halfway” by Anika Fajardo (Simon & Schuster). “The Counter-Clockwise Mind” by Brian Farry (Algonquin Young Readers). “Windswept” by Margi Preus (Amulet Books).
Memoirs and creative non-fiction:
“Seven Aunts” by Staci Lola Drouillard (University of Minnesota Press). Farewell Transmission by Will McGrath (Dzanc Books). “The Way She Wants To Go There”, Mary Moore Easter (Nodin Press). Sinkhole: The Legacy of Suicide, by Juliet Patterson (Milkweed Editions).
Minnesota non-fictionsponsored by Emilie Buchwald:
“When Minnehaha Flowed on Whiskey”, Karen E. Cooper (Minnesota Historical Society Press). “A Natural Curiosity: The Story of the Bell Museum” by Lansing Shepherd, Don Ruth, Barbara Coffin, and Gwen Shagrin (University of Minnesota Press). “The Steger Homestead Kitchen” by Will Steger and Rita Mae Steger (University of Minnesota Press). “Rochester: Urban Biography”, Virginia M. Wright Peterson (Minnesota Historical Society Press).
general non-fictionsponsored by The Duchess Harris Collection:
“Daughters of Arraweelo: Stories of Somali Women” by Ayaan Adan (Minnesota Historical Society Press). “They Don’t Want Her There: Fighting Sexual and Racial Harassment in American Colleges,” Carolyn Chalmers (University of Iowa Press). “Through the Red Cedar Banks” by Maya Washington (Little A). “Wilhelm’s Path: The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project,” by Teresa Wilhelm Waldorf (Third Generation Publishing).
novels & short storiessponsored by Jeff & Bernadette Janisch
Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angles (Ballantine Books). “The Barrens” by Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson (Arcade Publishing). “The Evening Hero” by Marie Myungok Lee (Simon & Schuster). “Till the Wheels Fall Off” by Brad Zellar (Coffee House Press).
genre fiction, Hosted by Macalester College:
“The Temps” by Andrew DeYoung (Keylight Books). “Ursulina” by Brian Freeman (Blackstone Publishing). ‘The Quarry Girls’ by Jess Lourey (Thomas and Mercer). “Sinister Graves” by Marcie R. Rendon (Soho Press).
poetrysponsored by Wellington Management:
‘How to Communicate’ by John Lee Clark (WW Norton). “Real Work” by Janna Knittel (Nodin Press). ‘Surface Displacements’ by Sheila Packa (Wildwood River Press). ‘The Wet Hex’ by Sun Yung Shin (Coffee House Press).
The Minnesota Book Awards are sponsored by the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library. Awards tickets go on sale Monday at www.thefriends.org/mnba.
