Minnesota Book Awards

"The First Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Infantry was the first volunteer regiment offered in service to President Lincoln after the fall of Ft. Sumter. Men and boys attended patriotic rallies throughout the young state and signed their names to papers that pledged they would answer the president's call. They were strong men, toughened by rugged pioneer life, and in the next three years they drew on that strength time and again. The men of the First Minnesota served in nearly every major battle in the eastern campaign with the Army of the Potomac and were frequently cited for their professional conduct in the field and for their bravery--nowhere more so than at the Battle of Gettysburg, where their harrowing sacrifice saved the Union from defeat and helped turn the tide of the war." -- Jacket

Too often ignored or underemphasized in favor of their male warrior counterparts, Native American women have played a more central role in guiding their nations than has ever been understood. Many Native communities were, in fact, organized around women's labor, the sanctity of mothers, and the wisdom of female elders. In this well-researched and deeply felt account of the Ojibwe of Lake Superior and the Mississippi River, Brenda J. Child details the ways in which women have shaped Native American life from the days of early trade with Europeans through the reservation era and beyond.

Autobiography of a leading Arctic explorer.

Much of the focus on the Dakota people in Minnesota rests on the tragic events of the 1862 U.S.Dakota War and the resulting exile that sent the majority of the Dakota to prisons and reservations beyond the states boundaries. But the true depth of the devastation of removal cannot be understood without a closer examination of the history of the Dakota people and their deep cultural connection to the land that is Minnesota. Drawing on oral history interviews, archival work, and painstaking comparisons of Dakota, French, and English sources, Mni Sota Makoce tells the detailed history of the Dakota people in their traditional homelands for at least hundreds of years prior to exile.  Dakota history did not begin with the U.S. Dakota War of 1862 nor did it end there. Mni Sota Makoce is, more than anything, a celebration of the Dakota people through their undisputed connection to this place, Minnesota, in the past, present, and future. 

With poems about loss, home, marriage, and the inner music of our lives, Pitch is a series of variations on an overturned piano. By turns bright and dark, like the keys on a keyboard, these poems demonstrate the range of one of contemporary poetry's most musical poets, a master of internal rhyme.

 Show moreShow less"Fans of Housewright’s award-winning crime series featuring Holland Taylor and, separately, Rushmore McKenzie, will see his lighter side in this pop-culture-meets-”Phantom-of-the-Opera” story written with his wife, who occasionally reviews theater for the Pioneer Press. The book is also Housewright’s first plunge into electronic self-publishing.  The “Diva” of the story is singer Clarisse Dufresne, whose voice sounds just like that of famous pop diva Sheila Lewis. When Lewis dies, Clarisse is snatched from the street by a masked man who whisks her to his Summit Avenue mansion. The mysterious man, Maurice, says he’s holding Clarisse a prisoner to protect her from bad guys who want her to participate in a fraud using her voice to release records that supposedly were made by Lewis before she died. The bad men come, and Clarisse has to fight her way to freedom while falling in love with Maurice."

Minnesotans are a highly skilled bunch, whether pursuing traditional activities like wild ricing and pickling or tastefully displaying taxidermy or selecting the right fishing bait. Skills particularly appropriate to Minnesota— such as creating seed art or baking a Bundt cake—may be fully on display at the state fair, a prime opportunity to join with neighbors in celebrating our many talents.  The Minnesota Book of Skills brings to life the basic know-how that makes us uniquely Minnesotan. Seasonal tips like how to gracefully exit a ski lift mingle with skills your grandparents knew well, such as what to forage for while on a hike. How soon is too soon to bring a child to the Boundary Waters or set her up on hockey skates? The answers are here. Maybe you’ll never carve an ice sculpture or build your own coffin—but isn’t it comforting to know that one handy book offers just the guidance you’ll need?
 

Danger mounts at a baron's remote estate as Emma Smallwood, a clever tutor's daughter, decides which of the baron's four sons to suspect and which to trust with her heart.