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Minnesota Book Awards Past Finalists and Winners - 2009
1988 | 1989 | 1991* | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999
2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
*Note: No awards were held in 1990.
Please also note that the award winners listed for each year were awarded in the year following publication (i.e. winners published in 2007 were announced in 2008 at the 20th Annual Minnesota Book Awards).
(Winners indicated by the 
icon; all others are Finalists)
2009 Award for Children’s Literature
Sponsored by MLBA Children's Fund
The House in the Night
Susan Marie Swanson, Illustrated by Beth Krommes
Houghton Mifflin Company
Henry’s Amazing Imagination
Nancy Carlson
Viking/Penguin Group
Monkey with a Tool Belt
Chris Monroe
Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group*
My Friend, the Starfinder
George Ella Lyon, Illustrated by Stephen Gammel
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
2009 Award for General Nonfiction
The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald’s Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat
Catherine Friend
Da Capo Press/Perseus Books Group
A Hard-Water World: Ice Fishing and Why We Do It
Greg Breining, Photography by Layne Kennedy
Minnesota Historical Society Press*
Potluck Paradise: Favorite Fare from Church and Community Cookbooks
Rae Katherine Eighmey and Debbie Miller
Minnesota Historical Society Press*
You Have Been Kind Enough to Assist Me: Herman Stern and the Jewish Refugee Crisis
Terry Shoptaugh
North Dakota State University Institute for Regional Studies
2009 Award for Genre Fiction
Sponsored by Wellington Management
Stalking Susan
Julie Kramer
Doubleday Publishing Group
A Carrion Death
Michael Stanley
HarperCollins Publishers
Phantom Prey
John Sandford
G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin Group
Red Knife
William Kent Krueger
Atria Books/Simon & Schuster
2009 Award for Memoir & Creative Nonfiction
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir
Kao Kalia Yang
Coffee House Press*
Madness: A Bipolar Life
Marya Hornbacher
Houghton Mifflin Company
Renaming the Earth: Personal Essays
Ray Gonzalez
The University of Arizona Press
Swallow the Ocean
Laura M. Flynn
Counterpoint
2009 Award for Minnesota
Sponsored by Xcel Energy
Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota
Barbara W. Sommer
Minnesota Historical Society Press*
Crossing the Canal: An Illustrated History of Duluth’s Aerial Bridge
Tony Dierckins
X-Communication*
Landscapes of Minnesota: A Geography
John Fraser Hart and Susy Svatek Ziegler
Minnesota Historical Society Press*
Minnesota on the Map: A Historical Atlas
David A. Lanegran with Carol Urness
Minnesota Historical Society Press*
2009 Award for Novel & Short Story
The Plague of Doves
Louise Erdrich
HarperCollins Publishers
Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire
David Mura
Coffee House Press*
Shelter Half
Carol Bly
Holy Cow! Press*
The Soul Thief
Charles Baxter
Pantheon Books/Random House, Inc.
2009 Award for Poetry
National Monuments
Heid E. Erdrich
Michigan State University Press
Milk and Tides
Margaret Hasse
Nodin Press*
The Sound of It
Tim Nolan
New Rivers Press*
Yellowrocket
Todd Boss
W.W. Norton & Company Inc.
2009 Award for Young People’s Literature
Sponsored by Tarrant, Drummer & Liska, PLLC
Twelve Long Months
Brian Malloy
Scholastic Press/Scholastic, Inc.
Black Box
Julie Schumacher
Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s Books
Julia Gillian (and the Art of Knowing)
Alison McGhee
Scholastic Press/Scholastic, Inc.
Saturday Night Dirt: A Motor Novel
Will Weaver
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
* Denotes a Minnesota-based Publisher
The Minnesota Book Awards is a Capital City project, led by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library,
in consortium with the Saint Paul Public Library and the City of Saint Paul.