2023 Minnesota Book Award Winners & Finalists

Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it's not all fun and games. Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can't forget. They've decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears--the second girl to vanish in...

Time is running out in the empire of Rheinvelt. The sudden appearance of a strange and frightening statue foretells darkness. The Hierophants--magic users of the highest order--have fled the land. And the shadowy beasts of the nearby Hinterlands are gathering near the borders, preparing for an attack. Young Prince Alphonsus is sent by his mother, the Empress Sabine, to reassure the people while she works to quell the threat of war. But Alphonsus has...

"Set on a small and struggling family dairy operation in southern Minnesota, The Complicated Calculus (and Cows) of Carl Paulsen follows fifteen-year-old Carl as he confronts his crush on Andy Olnan, a handsome and confident but secretive "city boy" recently transplanted to farm life from Minneapolis who may or may not share the same feelings. At the same time, Carl and his father clash over the future of their farm, a legacy of Carl's late mother:...

"In this unique collaboration, four authors lyrically explore where they each come from-literally and metaphorically. Richly layered illustrations connect past and present in this accessible and visually striking look at history, family, and identity"--

An award-winning narrative and documentary filmmaker and daughter of a football legend retraces her father's journey from the segregated South to Michigan State during the peak of the civil rights movement and his journey as an NFL pioneer after the 1967 draft.

"Jacob Elliot doesn't want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents' basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi's outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex. Wandering through Delphi headquarters Jacob finds...

"A fractured reckoning with the legacy and inheritance of suicide in one American family"-- 2009. Patterson learned her father had died by suicide. His death was part of a disturbing pattern in her family, and over the months that followed she kept returning to one question: Why? Why had her family lost so many men, so many fathers, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold? Sifting through the few belongings her father left behind, looking...

"When Glennon McCue moves into a lighthouse on a mysterious island not found on any maps, he must figure out why those who visit are never heard from again before he and his family fall victim to the island's curse"--

"A richly illustrated tour of Minnesota's premier natural history museum after 150 years"--

The lives of four artists are altered by the desires, protests, and ambitions that lure and unsettle them in the cutthroat New York art world. They struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and amongst each other and find either their most authentic terms of life--of success, failure, and joy--or risk losing themselves altogether.