Minnesota Book Awards: the winners for 2012
The 24th Annual Minnesota Book Awards were presented Saturday night; 270 books were nominated for awards this year, and 32 books were selected as finalists. Here are the winners:
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The Tanglewood Terror by Kurtis Scaletta is this year's winner of the Readers' Choice Award
Image: The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library
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Children's Literature
by Laura Purdie Salas
published by Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
A collection of wild and weird, wacky and winsome poems about all the magic to be found on a bookshelf.
General Nonfiction
Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America
by Shawn Lawrence Otto
published by Rodale
An exposé on anti-science views in modern-day America and the ramifications misinformation is having on our society.
Genre Fiction
by Richard A. Thompson
published by Poisoned Pen Press
Jilted by his childhood sweetheart and estranged from his father, Charlie Krueger leaves home to seek employment in North Dakota's booming wheat threshing industry in the fall of 1919. There, he witnesses the notorious Windmill Man serial killer committing the most recent in a string of murders, and becomes a target himself.
Memoir & Creative Nonfiction
A Song at Twilight: Of Alzheimer's and Love
by Nancy Paddock
published by Blueroad Press
Paddock's memoir chronicles her parents' descent into Alzheimer's and the challenges and choices she and her sisters face while confronting this most baffling and tragic of diseases.
About Minnesota
Pioneer Modernists: Minnesota's First Generation of Women Artists
by Julie L'Enfant
published by Afton Press
L'Enfant uses a host of sources, including previously unpublished papers, to tell the untold story of a groundbreaking generation of Minnesota female artists who played a significant, yet often-overlooked role in the development of art schools, galleries, and other institutions that make the Twin Cities the major cultural center it is today.
Novel & Short Story
The Law of Miracles and Other Stories
by Gregory Blake Smith
published by University of Massachusetts Press
A collection of short stories in which characters navigate between the everyday and the extraordinary.
Poetry
by Ed Bok Lee
published by Coffee House Press
Whorled confronts and celebrates the many complications of globalism through meditations on war, migration and culture.
Young People's Literature
by Brian Farrey
published by Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
A friendship becomes strained from two directions as Evan struggles to tell Davis about his secret, long-term boyfriend, Erik, and Davis gets caught up in a mysterious fringe crowd.
Readers' Choice Award
by Kurtis Scaletta
published by Alfred A. Knopf/Random House Children's Books
When Eric Parrish comes across glowing mushrooms in the woods behind his house, he's sure there's a scientific explanation.
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In addition to the above awards, Coffee House Press' Allan Kornblum received the Kay Sexton Award for his contributions to the state's literary community, and Cave Paper - run by Bridget O'Malley and Amanda Degener - earned the 2012 Book Artist Award. Mary Lethert Wingerd won the inaugural Minnesota History award for her book North Country: the Making of Minnesota, published by University of Minnesota Press.
270 books were nominated for awards this year, and 32 books were selected as finalists.