The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library has announced the winners of the 2026 Minnesota Book Awards, presented this year by sponsor Education Minnesota. The Friends presented awards to winners in nine categories, the Hognander Minnesota History Award, and the Kay Sexton Award to the previously announced recipient.
The Ceremony was held at the Ordway Wednesday evening, May 6, emceed by Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay and May Lee Yang. The winners of the 2026 Minnesota Book Awards are:
Award for Children’s Literature, sponsored by Beret Publishing:
All the Stars in the Sky by Art Coulson; illustrated by Winona Nelson (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
When Clay asks his Elisi (grandmother) for help to become the most important person in school, he’s surprised by her answer: No one person is more important than his family and his community. Clay learns that we are better when we shine together.
Art Coulson is an author of many books and short stories for children, including The Creator’s Game; Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!. He splits his time between his home in Minneapolis and his cabin in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.
Winona Nelson is a fine artist and illustrator of comics and children’s books, including If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving. Her fine art, often featuring Ojibwe stories and history, has been featured in galleries across the country.
Award for General Nonfiction:
Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie by David Hage and Josephine Marcotty (Random House/Penguin Random House)
The North American prairie is an ecological marvel, home to some of the nation’s most iconic creatures—bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles. This portrait of its transformation into some of the world’s most productive farmland reveals humanity’s relationship with prairie land, offering a deep, compassionate analysis of the difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities.
David Hage oversaw environmental and health reporting at the Star Tribune for a dozen years, editing projects that won a Pulitzer Prize and an Edward R. Murrow Award, among other honors. His previous books include No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor’s War at Hormel, and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work.
Josephine Marcotty is an award-winning environmental journalist who has spent her life in the Midwest. She was a reporter for the Star Tribune, where she covered complex, science-based topics.
Award for Genre Fiction, sponsored by Macalester College:
The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens (Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group)
Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian. When her best friend is murdered, Hana knows the past has come for her. Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: the deadly Night Mora. Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and find the killer before the past comes for them, too.
Allen Eskens is the bestselling author of The Life We Bury, The Guise of Another, The Heavens May Fall, The Deep Dark Descending, and The Shadows We Hide. He is the recipient of the Barry Award, Minnesota Book Award, Rosebud Award (Left Coast Crime), and Silver Falchion Award and has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, Thriller Award, and Anthony Award.
Award for Memoir & Creative Nonfiction:
Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage by Kelly Foster Lundquist (Eerdmans/Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
Kelly Foster Lundquist was nineteen when she met Devin at church camp. Immediately inseparable, they eventually married and divorced, after Devin confirmed he was gay. Beard revisits this relationship twenty years later, as Lundquist investigates the “beard” trope in literature, culture, and her own romantic life. The straight woman who unwittingly marries a gay man is either a laughingstock or a fool—or both—in the popular imagination. Yet, reality—much like desire—is more wild.
Kelly Foster Lundquist is a 2013 Milton postgraduate fellow at Image Journal and Kenyon Review workshop alum, and she has an MFA in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University. Originally from Mississippi, she teaches writing at North Hennepin Community College.
Award for Middle Grade Literature, sponsored by Education Minnesota:
Weird Sad and Silent by Alison McGhee (Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Random House)
Daisy has been invisibilizing herself—ever since living with her mother’s violent ex-boyfriend, and now to avoid the school bullies. She keeps a low profile, eating lunch with the librarian instead of in the Lunchroom of Terror. But things are looking up. A new boy has befriended her and seems able to stand up to the bullies, and the stray cat she’s been feeding is starting to almost trust her. Maybe she can finally focus on futurizing.
Alison McGhee is the award-winning author of several picture books and novels for adult and young readers, including Telephone of the Tree, Rainlight, Shadow Baby, What I Leave Behind, Dear Brother, the Bink and Gollie and Julia Gillian series, and more. She is a four-time Minnesota Book Award winner.
Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, sponsored by Annette and John Whaley:
Enmity and Empathy: Japanese Americans in Minnesota During World War II by Ka F. Wong (Minnesota Historical Society Press)*
The forced confinement of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor in 1941 was one of the worst civil rights violations of the twentieth century. Only fifty-one Japanese American people lived in Minnesota in 1940, but by war’s end there were several thousand. Drawing on personal interviews, archival sources, and historical literature, scholar and professor Ka Wong explores the courageous struggles of trailblazers who left the camps and rebuilt their lives in the North Star State.
Ka F. Wong is professor of Asian Studies at St. Olaf College. He is producer, director, and writer of the film Beyond the Barbed Wire: Japanese Americans in Minnesota. Wong lives near Northfield.
Award for Novel & Short Story, sponsored by Minnesota Humanities Center:
Ashes to Ashes by Thomas Maltman (Soho Press/Penguin Random House)
When ashes from an Ash Wednesday service refuse to wash off, members of a prairie town congregation wonder whether they’ve been blessed or cursed. For Basil—a “gentle giant” of a teen reeling from a farming accident and his mother’s confinement in a mental hospital—the ashes become a sign, and he embarks on a secret ritual of fasting and prayer. As Basil’s relentless fasting warps his grip on reality, the danger he poses escalates.
Thomas Maltman is the author of four novels, including The Night Birds, which won an Alex Award, a Spur Award, and the Friends of American Writers Literary Award. Little Wolves, his second novel, was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. He teaches at Normandale Community College.
Award for Poetry, sponsored by Wellington Management, Inc.:
I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always by Douglas Kearney (Wave Books)
I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always pushes further into Kearney’s long-time practices of performance typography, creating visual poems of juxtaposed advertising images, text, dialogue bubbles, and other graphic elements. Kearney uses the visual and spatial elements to wrap the text back on itself, “challenging its own methodology in a way that speaks to the precarious nature of Black life in America.”
Douglas Kearney has published nine books ranging from poetry to essays to libretti. His work has been awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize, CLMP Awards in Poetry and Nonfiction, The Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, and the Minnesota Book Award. He teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota.
Award for Young Adult Literature, sponsored by Red Balloon Bookshop:
The Flip Side by Jason Walz (Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Random House)
Theo’s best friend has died, and he can’t pull himself out of his sadness—a sadness that those around him don’t seem to notice. Then something even more disconcerting happens: His town literally flips upside down and everyone disappears, except for a threatening, shape-shifting monster and a snarky teenage girl who knows her way around this flipped world. Is Theo doomed to spend the rest of his life in this scary state?
Jason Walz worked for many years as a special education teacher, and is the creator of several previous graphic novels, including the Last Pick trilogy and the Eisner Award-nominated Homesick.
*Indicates a Minnesota-based publisher.
Hognander Minnesota History Award:
It Took Courage: Eliza Winston’s Quest for Freedom by Christopher P. Lehman (Minnesota Historical Society Press)*
On August 22, 1860, Eliza Winston, an enslaved woman from Mississippi, petitioned for her freedom before a judge in Minnesota—and won. For more than 150 years, historians’ accounts have emphasized the mobs who battled in the streets after the ruling, focusing on the implications of the events for Minnesota politics rather than Winston’s own story. With It Took Courage, Lehman uncovers the remarkable story of her life and battle for freedom.
Books written by a Minnesotan and first published in 2025 were eligible for the 38th annual Minnesota Book Awards. A total of 281 books were submitted for awards this year, and 36 books were selected as finalists. The winners were chosen by panels of judges from around the state. Submissions for next year’s awards will open in August 2026. For more information on the Book Awards process, and a list of finalists and winners since 1988, visit www.thefriends.org/mnba.
John and Ruth Huss are lead event sponsors. Saint Paul Neighborhood Network is our outreach partner.
The Minnesota Book Awards is a year-long program of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library that connects readers and writers throughout the state with the stories of our neighbors. The process begins in the fall with book submissions and continues through winter with two rounds of judging. Winners are announced at the Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony each spring. Woven throughout the season are events that promote the authors and connect the world of Minnesota books – writers, artists, illustrators, publishers, editors, and more – to readers throughout the state. In recognition of this and its other statewide programs and services, the Library of Congress has recognized The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library as the state’s designated Center for the Book. For more information visit thefriends.org/mnba.
About The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library:
The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library acts as a catalyst for libraries to strengthen and inspire their communities. An independent, nonprofit organization established in 1945, The Friends invests in the Saint Paul Public Library through fundraising, advocacy, and programming; as a result, our Library is a nationally-recognized leader in serving its community. The Friends also serves libraries across the country through its consulting services, Library Strategies, and promotes literacy, reading, and libraries statewide as the Library of Congress’s designated Minnesota Center for the Book. For more information, contact The Friends at 651-222-3242 or visit thefriends.org.
