Massachusetts Center for the Book is pleased to announce the Must Reads (long lists) in the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards.
The books were selected from among hundreds of submissions to this annual recognition of significant achievements in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, middle grade/young adult literature, and picture books/early readers published by the talented writers among us in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Center will work with reading partners to promote these titles through the Summer. We'll announce and celebrate the award winners in the Fall. Details will follow once we learn what access we will have to our normal venues.
Must Read Fiction
The Bear by Andrew Krivak (Bellevue Literary Press)
The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey (Harper/HarperCollins)
Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe (Lethe)
Fabrications by Pamela Painter (Johns Hopkins UP)
Impersonation by Heidi Pitlor (Algonquin Books)
Inheritors by Asako Serizawa (Doubleday/Penguin Random House)
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston (Tor/Macmillan)
Monogamy by Sue Miller (Harper/HarperCollins)
Popol Vuh by Ilan Stavans (Restless Books)
The Resisters by Gish Jen (Knopf/Penguin Random House)
Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin (Celadon Books/Macmillan)
Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner (Flatiron Books/Macmillan)
Must Read Nonfiction
Bright Precious Thing by Gail Caldwell (Random House/Penguin Random House)
Cross of Snow by Nicholas A. Basbanes (Knopf/Penguin Random House)
Demagogue by Larry Tye (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Finding Sanctuary by Barry Van Dusen (Mass Audubon)
Full Dissidence by Howard Bryant (Beacon)
A Furious Sky by Eric Jay Dolin (Liveright/Norton)
How to Make a Slave and Other Essays by Jerald Walker (Ohio State UP)
Is Rape a Crime? by Michelle Bowdler (Flatiron Books/Macmillan)
Money for Nothing by Thomas Levenson (Random House/Penguin Random House)
The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart (Bloomsbury)
Say I'm Dead by E. Dolores Johnson (Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review)
The Smallest Lights in the Universe by Sara Seager (Crown/Penguin Random House)
Spirit Run by Noé Alvarez (Catapult Books)
What Can a Body Do? by Sara Hendren (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House)
Must Read Poetry
Between Lakes by Jeffrey Harrison (Four Way Books)
Field Light by Owen Lewis (Dos Madres)
First Generation by Krikor Der Hohannesian (Dos Madres)
Geode by Susan Barba (Black Sparrow/Godine)
Land's End by Gail Mazur (U of Chicago P)
Listen by Steven Cramer (MadHat)
Mesmerizingly Sadly Beautiful by Matthew Lippman (Four Way Books)
Now It's Dark by Peter Gizzi (Wesleyan UP)
On Earth Beneath Sky by Chath pierSath (Loom)
Petition by Joyce Peseroff (Carnegie Mellon UP)
Teaching While Black by Matthew E. Henry (Main Street Rag)
When My Body Was A Clinched Fist by Enzo Silon Surin (Black Lawrence)
Women in the Waiting Room by Kirun Kapur (Black Lawrence)
Wonder and Wrath by A.M. Juster (Paul Dry Books)
Must Read Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature
Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit (Bloomsbury)
The Colossus of Roads by Christina Uss (Margaret Ferguson Books/Penguin Random House)
The Degenerates by J. Albert Mann (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
Don't Ask Me Where I'm From by Jennifer De Leon (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Simon & Schuster)
Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
Flamer by Mike Curato (Holt Books for Young Readers/Macmillan)
Illegal by Francisco X. Stork (Scholastic)
The Maps of Memory by Marjorie Agosin (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Simon & Schuster)
Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner (Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan)
Sources Say by Lori Goldstein (Razorbill/Penguin Random House)
The Witches of Willow Cove by Josh Roberts (Owl Hollow)
This Book Is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell (Frances Lincoln Children's Books/Quarto)
Trowbridge Road by Marcella Pixley (Candlewick)
Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles (Wednesday Books/Macmillan)
Must Read Picture Books/Early Readers
Be You! by Peter H. Reynolds (Scholastic)
The Bear in My Family by Maya Tatsukawa (Dial Books/Penguin Random House)
Cozy by Jan Brett (Putnam's Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
Geeger the Robot Goes to School by Jarrett Lerner (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster)
Hound Won't Go by Lisa Rogers (Albert Whitman)
How Long is Forever? by Kelly Carey (Charlesbridge)
I am the Storm by Jane Yolen & Heidi E.Y. Stemple (Rise x Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House)
A Kid of Their Own by Megan Dowd Lambert (Charlesbridge)
Lali's Feather by Farhana Zia (Peachtree)
River Otter's Adventure by Linda Stanek (Arbordale)
Seven Golden Rings by Rajani LaRocca (Lee & Low Books)
Wherever I Go by Mary Wagley Copp (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
You're Invited to a Moth Ball by Loree Griffin Burns (Charlesbridge)
Zero Local: Next Stop: Kindness by Ethan Murrow and Vita Murrow (Candlewick)
