[Michlib-l] 2025-26 Great Lakes Great Books Award Nominees Announced!

[Jesse Shirtz]

PRESS RELEASE
[https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdaGtW-1Qhf4hBf7PPFvMknAy6_E-St0dmis_2j1BDgNbfCaDBZJnNV1Rx-674pnUCgE_Z6DcuERxEHuts7iOUQ1-emBFn-yzC3qQ-iXKS2uQYIKLA13efkWdoGrS3qpqBX-VquXQ?key=S02SRXNY-kfbzWwdH4f85xIN]

Great Lakes Great Books Award
Jesse Shirtz & Heather Lander, committee co-chairs
906-486-4381
GreatLakesGreatBooks at gmail.com<mailto:GreatLakesGreatBooks at gmail.com>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2025-26 Great Lakes Great Books Award Nominees Announced

[ISHPEMING, MI] - The Great Lakes Great Books Award Committee announced this year’s nominees at the Michigan Reading Association’s Annual Conference on Sunday, March 8, 2025 in a Facebook Live event. Eight nominees were named in each of the five categories. Michigan students in grades K-12 will elect the winners by voting on the pool of 40 nominees chosen by the committee. Titles with the most votes will be declared the winners and honor books at next year’s conference. The nominees are as follows:

K-1:
Counting Winter by Nancy White Carlstrom, illustrated by Claudia McGehee (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers)
Night Owl Night by Susan Edwards Richmond, illustrated by Maribel Lechuga (Charlesbridge)
We Are Definitely Human by X. Fang (Tundra)
Buffalo Fluffalo by Bess Kalb, illustrated by Erin Kraan (Random House Studio)
Zooni Tales: Keep It Up, Plucky Pup by Vikram Madan (Margaret Ferguson Books)
The Most Magnificent Maker’s A-Z by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)
I Am Friendly: Confessions of a Helpful Bear by Kristen Tracy, illustrated by Erin Kraan (Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers)
Courage, Every Day by Wai Mei Wong, illustrated by Kirsti Beautyman (Tilbury House Publishers)

2-3:
Haiku, Ew!: Celebrating the Disgusting Side of Nature by Lynn Brunelle, illustrated by Julia Patton (Millbrook Press)
Fresh Juice by Robert Liu-Trujillo (Lee & Low Books)
A Mischief of Mice by Christie Matheson (Sourcebooks)
Little Shrew by Akiko Miyakoshi (Kids Can Press)
Drawn Onward by Daniel Nayeri, illustrated by Matthew Rockefeller (HarperAlley)
The Iguanodon’s Horn: How Artists and Scientists Put a Dinosaur Back Together Again and Again and Again by Sean Rubin (Clarion Books)
This Is Not My Story by Ryan Uytdewilligen, illustrated by David Huyck (Kids Can Press)
Detective Sweet Pea: The Case of the Golden Bone by Sara Varon (:01 First Second)

4-5:
Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar (Nancy Paulsen Books)
Polar: Wildlife at the Ends of the Earth by L.E. Carmichael, illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler (Kids Can Press)
Ferris by Kate DiCamillon (Candlewick Press)
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Summer Vamp by Violet Chan Karim (Random House Graphic)
Dear Dad: Growing Up With a Parent in Prison - And How We Stayed Connected by Jay Jay Patton with Kiara Valdez, illustrated by Markia Jenai (Graphix)
Sky Ropes by Sondra Soderborg (Chronicle Books)
Dog Trouble by Kristin Varner (:01 First Second)

6-8:
The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie (Sourcebooks Young Readers)
Gut Reaction by Kirby Larson and Quinn Wyatt (Scholastic Press)
Gone Wolf by Amber McBride (Feiwel & Friends)
Swing by Audrey Meeker (Feiwel & Friends)
The Wrong Way Home by Kate O’Shaughnessy (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Louder Than Hunger by John Schu (Candlewick Press)
Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Kokila)
Weirdo by Tony Weaver, Jr., illustrated by Jes and Cin Wibowo (:01 First Second)

9-12:
This Book Won’t Burn by Samira Ahmed (Little, Brown Books)
Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow (Candlewick Press)
Ruin Road by Lamar Giles (Scholastic Press)
Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest by Isabel Greenberg (Amulet Books)
The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival by Estelle Nadel, illustrated by Sammy Savos (Roaring Brook Press)
The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag (Graphix)
Brownstone by Samuel Teer, illustrated by Mar Julia (Versify)
Just Do This One Thing For Me by Laura Zimmermann (Dutton)


Votes may be submitted until January 11, 2026 on the MRA’s website. The committee maintains a web presence at <http://www.michiganreading.org> www.michiganreading.org/great-lakes-great-books<http://www.michiganreading.org/great-lakes-great-books> and on social media: @MichGLGBooks on Facebook and Twitter, and @GreatLakesGreatBooks on Instagram.
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Jesse Shirtz

(she/her<https://pronouns.org/>)
Library Director
Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library
317 N. Main Street
Ishpeming, MI 49849
906-486-4381
www.ishpeminglibrary.info<http://www.ishpeminglibrary.info>

co-chair
Great Lakes Great Books Award<http://www.michiganreading.org/great-lakes-great-books>
Michigan Reading Association
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