Winners Announced: Midwest Booksellers Choice Awards

​WINNERS OF MIDWEST BOOKSELLERS CHOICE AWARDS ANNOUNCED
Independent booksellers celebrate favorite books with ties to the Midwest
 
Independent booksellers across the Midwest selected the following titles as the winners of the 2017 Midwest Booksellers Choice Awards, a program hosted by the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association.

• Fiction: Wintering, Peter Geye (​Knopf/Penguin Random House)
• Nonfiction: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, Dan Egan (​W.W. Norton)
• Poetry: How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century, Louis V. Clark III (​Wisconsin Historical Society Press)
• Young Adult and Middle Grade: Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Algonquin Young Readers)
• Children's Picture Book: One North Star, Phyllis Root, Betsy Bowen, and Beckie Prange, (University of Minnesota Press)

 
These awards reflect the knowledge and passion of independent booksellers, who personally get behind the books they love. The books are “I’m always proud of our awards program,” says Carrie Obry, director of MIBA, “because it celebrates the power and influence of the collective voice of independent booksellers.” The authors will be recognized at an awards ceremony in October at the Heartland Fall Forum, a trade show for the publishing industry.
 
Each April, publishers nominate titles eligible for the award. In May, booksellers narrow the field in a first round of nominations, then in June, vote on the three finalists in each genre to determine the winners. Eligible books must be published between May of the previous year and April of the current year, and must have a connection to the region either in the content of the book or via the author’s hometown or residence. 
 
For a complete list of finalists and previous winners, visit our website. 
 
About the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association: We are a regional nonprofit trade association established in 1981 to promote retail bookselling and support independent booksellers throughout our region. Our members include locally owned and operated independent bookstores; book publishers, distributors, reps, and vendors who do business with our bookstores; and other individuals and businesses allied to the book industry, such as media, librarians, and teachers. With over 225 members, including nearly 150 bookstores, we represent stores in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.