The Great Lakes Great Reads award is an annual program to recognize excellence in writing for books about or written by authors with ties to the Great Lakes region. The awards given annually are for Adult and Children's Books. Past winners have remained on the weekly GLBIA Bestsellers List for weeks, months and even years. It is a great opportunity to shine a light on those books you are passionate about.
The Great Lakes Great Reads award is an annual program to recognize excellence in writing for books about or written by authors with ties to the Great Lakes region. The awards given annually are for Adult and Children's Books. Past winners have remained on the weekly GLBIA Bestsellers List for weeks, months and even years. It is a great opportunity to shine a light on those books you are passionate about.
Congratulations to the 2019 Winners!
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ADULT FICTION WINNER
Ohio by Stephen Markley
$16.99 Paperback ISBN: 9781501174483 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Publication Date: June 4th, 2019 Pages: 512 Edelweiss One sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio. There’s Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to post-BP New Orleans, and now back home with a mysterious package strapped to the undercarriage of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting her family and the mother of her best friend and first love, whose disappearance spurs the mystery at the heart of the novel; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he’s tried desperately to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the washed-up captain of the football team triggers the novel’s shocking climax. Set over the course of a single evening, Ohio toggles between the perspectives of these unforgettable characters as they unearth dark secrets, revisit old regrets and uncover—and compound—bitter betrayals. Before the evening is through, these narratives converge masterfully to reveal a mystery so dark and shocking it will take your breath away. |
ADULT NONFICTION WINNER
The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero by Michael Kranish
$30 Hardcover ISBN: 9781501192593 Publisher: Scribner Publication Date: May 7th, 2019 Pages: 384 Edelweiss In the 1890s, the nation’s promise of equality had failed spectacularly. While slavery had ended with the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws still separated blacks from whites, and the excesses of the Gilded Age created an elite upper class. Amidst this world arrived Major Taylor, a young black man who wanted to compete in the nation’s most popular and mostly white man’s sport, cycling. Birdie Munger, a white cyclist who once was the world’s fastest man, declared that he could help turn the young black athlete into a champion. Twelve years before boxer Jack Johnson and fifty years before baseball player Jackie Robinson, Taylor faced racism at nearly every turn—especially by whites who feared he would disprove their stereotypes of blacks. In The World’s Fastest Man, years in the writing, investigative journalist Michael Kranish reveals new information about Major Taylor based on a rare interview with his daughter and other never-before-uncovered details from Taylor’s life. Kranish shows how Taylor indeed became a world champion, traveled the world, was the toast of Paris, and was one of the most chronicled black men of his day. From a moment in time just before the arrival of the automobile when bicycles were king, the populace was booming with immigrants, and enormous societal changes were about to take place, The World’s Fastest Man shines a light on a dramatic moment in American history—the gateway to the twentieth century. |
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CHILDREN'S YA & MIDDLE GRADE WINNER
Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
$17.99 Hardcover ISBN: 9780399252525 Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books Publication Date: August 28th, 2018 Pages: 192 Edelweiss It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat--by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them--everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives. |
CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK WINNER
Music for Mister Moon by Philip C. Stead,
Illustrated by Erin Stead $18.99 Hardcover ISBN: 9780823441600 Publisher: Neal Porter Books Publication Date: March 26th, 2019 Pages: 40 Edelweiss A girl named Harriet longs to play her cello alone in her room. But when a noisy owl disrupts her solitude, Harriet throws her teacup out the window and accidentally knocks the moon out of the sky in frustration. Over the course of an evening, Harriet and the moon become fast friends. Worried that he'll catch a chill, Harriet buys the moon a soft woolen hat, then takes him on a boat ride across a glistening lake, something he's only dreamed of. But can she work up the courage to play her music for the moon? In this delicate bedtime story about a shy young cello player who learns to share her music with the moon, the award-winning Philip and Erin Stead deliver another whimsical, visually oriented picture book in their signature style. |