I am overjoyed.
The Massachusetts Book Awards recognize significant works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s/young adult literature published by Commonwealth residents or about Massachusetts subjects.
Massachusetts Center for the Book is delighted to announce two years of Massachusetts Book Awards, the 18th and 19th annual awards (for books published in 2017 and 2018 respectively).
FICTION:
19th Award: The Unmade World by Steve Yarbrough (Unbridled)
19th Honors: Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee (Viking) and The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
19th Must Reads: Gone So Long: A Novel by Andre Dubus III; Early Work by Andrew Martin; Theory of Bastards by Audrey Schulman; The Garden Party by Grace Dane Mazur; The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel; The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay; My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley; Ultraviolet by Suzanne Matson; Bound for Gold by William Martin
18th Award: The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman (Dial Press)
18th Honors: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press) and The World of Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews (Little, Brown)
18th Must Reads: The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman; The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry; The Burning Girl: A Novel byClaire Messud; World Enough by Clea Simon; Feast of Sorrow byCrystal King; The River at Night by Erica Ferencik; Mikhail and Margarita by Julie Lekstrom Himes; I Was Trying To Describe What It Feels Like by Noy Holland; The Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers
NONFICTION:
19th Award: These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore (W. W. Norton)
19th Honors: Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade (Ecco) and The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968 by George Howe Colt (Scribner)
19th Must Reads: The Biological Mind: How Brain, Body, and Environment Collaborate to Make Us Who We Are by Alan Jasanoff; Above and Beyond by Casey Sherman and Michael J Tougias; The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann; Black Flags, Blue Waters by Eric Jay Dolin; We Can’t Breathe by Jabari Asim; After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet by Julie Dobrow; Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War by Lisa Brooks; How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt; Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
18th Award: The Written World by Martin Puchner (Random House)
18th Honors: Cuz by Danielle Allen (W. W. Norton ) and The True Flag by Stephen Kinzer (Henry Holt)
18th Must Reads: The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich; The Wine Lover’s Daughter by Anne Fadiman; Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals: An Extinction Reader by Daniel Hudon; The Correspondence by J. D. Daniels; To the New Owners by Madeline Blais; The Dawn Watch by Maya Jasanoff; Elizabeth Bishop by Megan Marshall; The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt; Areas of Fog by Will Dowd
POETRY:
19th Award: The Wall by Ilan Stavans (Pittsburgh)
19th Honors: Ornitheology by Kevin McLellan (Word Works) and Rewilding by January Gill O’Neil (CavanKerry)
19th Must Reads: Blood Labors by Daniel Tobin; Pray Me Stay Eager by Ellen Dore Watson; Bad Harvest by Dzvinia Orlowsky; White Storm by Gary Metras; My Tarantella by Jennifer Martelli; Shadow-Feast by Joan Houlihan; Night Unto Night by Martha Collins; See the Wolf by Sarah Sousa; Stanley’s Girl: Poems by Susan Eisenberg
18th Award: Noon Until Night by Richard Hoffman (Barrow Street)
18th Honors: In the Still of the Night by Dara Wier (Wave Books) and Said Not Said by Fred Marchant (Graywolf)
18th Must Reads: Unfathoming by Andrea Cohen; Figuring in the Figure by Ben Berman; Gloved Against Blood by Cindy Veach; Half-light by Frank Bidart; Krakatoa Picnic by James Heflin; Critical Assembly: Poems of the Manhattan Project by John Canaday; Little Kisses by Lloyd Schwartz; Testify by Simone John; Advice from the Lights by Stephanie Burt
MIDDLE GRADE/YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE:
19th Award: Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen (Penguin Young Readers)
19th Honors: Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Scholastic) and Lucy Castor Finds Her Sparkle by Natasha Lowe (Simon & Schuster)
19th Must Reads: The Magic of Melwick Orchard by Rebecca Caprara; What the Wind Can Tell You by Sarah Marie A Jette; The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss; It Wasn’t Me by Dana Alison Levy; The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall; Art of the Swap by Kristine Asseline; The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M. T. Anderson; Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything by Martin Sandler; Boggart Fights Back by Susan Cooper
18th Award: The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole by Michelle Cuevas (Penguin Young Readers)
18th Honors: And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin (Penguin Young Readers) and Fault Lines in the Constitution by Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson (Peachtree)
18th Must Reads: Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Deborah Kops; The Magician & the Spirits by Deborah Noyes; Trell: Nothing But the Truth by Dick Lehr; A Psalm for Lost Girls by Katie Bayerl; Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk; The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin W. Sandler; The Wonderling by Mira Bartok; Now or Never! by Ray Anthony Shepard; Being Fishkill by Ruth Lehrer
PICTURE BOOK/EARLY READER:
19th Award: A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
19th Honors: Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers by Melissa Stewart (Peachtree) and The Rough Patch by Brian Lies (Greenwillow)
19th Must Reads: A Stone for Sascha by Aaron Becker; Just Add Glitter by Angela DiTerlizzi; Anybody’s Game by Heather Lang; Fish Are Not Afraid of Doctors by J.E. Morris; Rescue and Jessica by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, ill: Scott Magoon; Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible ALVIN by Michelle Cusolito, ill: Nicole Wong; Little Robot Alone by Patricia MacLachlan; The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds; Howard and the Mummy by Tracey Fern
18th Award: Windows by Julia Denos (Candlewick)
18th Honors: Sparkle Boy by Lesléa Newman (Lee & Low) and The Banana-Leaf Ballby Katie Smith Milway (Kids Can)
18th Must Reads: Little Pig Saves the Ship by David Hyde Costello; Thunder Underground by Jane Yolen; Newton’s Rainbow by Kathryn Lasky; When the Snow Falls by Linda Booth Sweeney; The Boy and the Whale by Mordicai Gerstein; Ben’s Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick; Sydney & Simon: To the Moon! by Paul Reynolds; The Language of Angels: A Story about the Reinvention of Hebrew by Richard Michelson; The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling by Timothy Basil Ering
Judges in the 18th and 19th MassBook programs: Carol Baldwin, Lynn Blair, Laurie Cavanaugh, Charles Coe, Cindy Erle, Andrea Fiorillo, Betsy Groban, Karen Kosko, Rob MacLean, Jacqueline Rafferty, Amy Rhilinger, Elizabeth Safford, Sean Thibodeau, and members of the staff and board of Massachusetts Center for the Book.