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If you're a book lover in Massachusetts, then get ready to add a few more novels to your to-be-read list! The Massachusetts Book Awards, an annual celebration of literary excellence in the Bay State, has once again recognized outstanding works across various genres. From compelling fiction to thought-provoking nonfiction, from lyrical poetry to captivating children's literature, for the 24th year in a row, the Massachusetts Book Awards showcases the diverse voices and stories emerging from the Commonwealth.

"The Massachusetts Book Awards recognize significant works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, graphic novel/memoir, and children’s/young adult literature written, illustrated, or translated by current Commonwealth residents." - The Massachusetts Book Awards

Below you'll find listed the 2024 honorees which were announced on Wednesday, September 4th. To learn more about the Massachusetts Book Awards, visit www.massbook.org/mass-book-awards.

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Fiction Award

• Kantika: A Novel by Elizabeth Graver (Metropolitan Books)

"A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home."

Fiction Honors

• The Light of Seven Days by River Adams (Delphinium Books)

"Living with her Babby after her parents’ death, 10-year-old Dinah Ash is invited to train at Leningrad’s legendary Vaganova Ballet School. In the world of elite dance, she works hard, falls in love, and weathers the Soviet Union’s ubiquitous antisemitism, but despite an impressive talent, she quickly learns that dancers of her “profile” don’t make prima ballerinas."

• Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck (Simon & Schuster / Marysue Rucci Books)

"A “beautifully written” (Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See) debut novel of marriage, motherhood, metamorphosis, and letting go, this intergenerational love story begins with newlyweds Wren and her husband, Lewis—a man who, over the course of nine months, transforms into a great white shark."

Fiction Longlist

• Rouge: A Novel by Mona Awad (Simon & Schuster / Marysue Rucci Books)
• Relentless Melt by Jeremy P. Bushnell (Melville House)
• The Last Beekeeper by Julie Carrick Dalton (Macmillan Publishers)
• Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy (Zando / Gillian Flynn Books)
• The Archivists by Daphne Kalotay (Northwestern University Press)
• Like the Appearance of Horses by Andrew Krivak (Bellevue Literary Press)
• Muckross Abbey and Other Stories by Sabina Murray (Grove Atlantic)
• Night Angels by Weina Dai Randel (Lake Union Publishing)
• We Have Always Been Who We Are by Sofia T. Romero (Blackstone Publishing)

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Nonfiction Award

• Winter Solstice by Nina MacLaughlin (Black Sparrow Press)

"A celebration and meditation on the season for drinking hot chocolate, spotting a wreath on a neighbor’s door, experiencing the change in light of shorter days. All aspects of Winter, from the meteorological to the mythological, are captured in this masterful essay, told in wise and luminous prose that pushes back the dark."

Nonfiction Honors

• Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill Me and Has Failed by Kim McLarin (lg Publishing)

"With accumulated wisdom and sharp-eyed clarity, Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill Me And Has Failed addresses the joys and hardships of being an older Black woman in contemporary, “periracial” America. Award-winning author Kim McLarin utilizes deeply personal experiences to illuminate the pain and power of aging, Blackness and feminism, in the process capturing the endless cycle of progress and backlash that has long shaped race and gender."

• Into the Amazon by Larry Rohter (W.W. Norton)

"A thrilling biography of the Indigenous Brazilian explorer, scientist, stateseman, and conservationist who guided Theodore Roosevelt on his journey down the River of Doubt."

Nonfiction Longlist

• He/She/They by Schuyler Bailar (Hachette Go)
• Spoken Word: A Cultural History by Joshua Bennett (Vintage)
• How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World by Deb Chachra (Riverhead Books)
• Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury by Drew Gilpin Faust (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• An Unruled Body by Ani Gjika (Restless Books)
• The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland (Penguin Press)
• What’s Gotten Into You by Dan Levitt (HarperCollins)
• Chomsky & Me by Bev Boisseau Stohl (OR Books)
• Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo (37 Ink / Simon & Schuster)

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Poetry Award

• Fierce Elegy by Peter Gizzi (Wesleyan University Press)

"Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also―as it has been for centuries―a work of love"

Poetry Honors

• Navigating the Reach by Mary Buchinger (Salmon Poetry)

“Mary Buchinger possesses native fluency in the language of velocities. In Navigating the Reach, the speaker touches her way, poem after spare poem, along a swift corridor of exits and disappearances. In this, her fourth full-length collection, Buchinger’s nimble poems examine the transition of the staid to the seldom, and finally, the never. Her poems fly at an altitude of lonely compassion, from which she captures the gleaming urgencies far below, just as their gleam ceases. She observes the handing back and forth of treasured things between father and daughter, as the exchange process itself dwindles them, however tenderly. Ultimately, we stand alongside the speaker in a vast, clean emptiness, which is in fact brimming with the marvel of impermanence.” - Frannie Lindsay, author of If Mercy (The Word Works)

• Ordinary Entanglement by Melissa Dickey (Cleveland State University Poetry Center)

"Melissa Dickey's poems sing in defiance--and perhaps celebration--of a slowly burning, ever spinning world. 'A gauge,' the poet suggests, and indeed they offer not a fixed point so much as the lights in the aisle that will lead you in the event of an emergency to the nearest exit. Dickey does not deny the violence we inherit but offers a song to gird us against what else might come. Simply put, these lines shine." - Abigail Chabitnoy

Poetry Longlist

• Gravity and Center by Henri Cole (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• The Diaspora Sonnets by Oliver de la Paz (W.W. Norton)
• Shadow Act by Daniel Brock Johnson (McSweeney’s Publishing)
• The Observable Universe by Hannah Larrabee (Lily Poetry Review)
• Ghost :: Seeds by Sebastian Merrill (Texas Review Press)
• Love is a Shore by Hilary Sallick (Lily Poetry Review)
• American Scapegoat by Enzo Silon Surin (Black Lawrence Press)
• This Far North by Jason Tandon (Black Lawrence Press)
• The Mansions by Daniel Tobin (Four Way Books)

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Translated Literature Award

• My Language Is a Jealous Lover by Adrián N. Bravi, translated by Victoria Offredi Poletto and Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi (Rutgers University Press)

"Many great writers have been fluent in multiple languages but have never been able to escape their mother tongue. Yet if a native language feels like home, an adopted language sometimes offers a hospitality one cannot find elsewhere."

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Middle Grade / Young Adult Award

• The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado (Holiday House)

"Blisteringly funny and profoundly well-observed, The Fall of Whit Rivera is a snug and cozy autumn romcom that also tackles weightier topics like PCOS, chronic illness, sexuality, fatphobia, Latine identity, and class. Funny, honest, insightful, romantic, and poignant, it is classic Crystal Maldonado—and it will have her legion of fans absolutely swooning."

Middle Grade / Young Adult Honors

• The Remarkable Rescue at Milkweed Meadow by Elaine Dimopoulos (Charlesbridge)

"This timeless early middle-grade adventure about friendship and community will charm animal-loving fans of The Tale of Despereaux and Clarice the Brave. Illustrated by Caldecott winner Doug Salati."

• I Am Not Alone by Francisco X. Stork (Scholastic)

"This is a page-turning thriller and a sensitive story about mental health, love, and community that will appeal to anyone who has struggled with their place in the world, from award-winning author Francisco X. Stork."

Middle Grade / Young Adult Longlist

• All You Have to Do by Autumn Allen (Kokila / Penguin Young Readers)
• Spin by Rebecca Caprara (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• Pedro & Daniel by Federico Erebia (Levine Querido)
• The Song of Us by Kate Fussner (Katherine Tegen Books / HarperCollins)
• A Work in Progress by Jarrett Lerner (Aladdin / Simon & Schuster)
• Chinese Menu by Grace Lin (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Squished by Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter (Scholastic)
• The Moonlit Vine by Elizabeth Santiago (Lee & Low Books)
• Ghosts, Toast, and Other Hazards by Susan Tan (Roaring Book Press / Macmillan)

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Picture Book / Early Reader Award

• Once Upon a Book by Grace Lin and Kate Messner (Little, Brown Books For Young Readers)

"From Caldecott and Newbery Honoree Grace Lin and bestselling author Kate Messner comes a modern folktale about the joy of reading."

Picture Book / Early Reader Honors

• Night Owl Night by Susan Edwards Richmond. Maribel Lechuga, illus. (Charlesbridge Publishing)

"An inspiring introduction to capture-and-release research, this mother-daughter story about owl conservation will spark curiosity in young nature, bird, and science lovers."

• Mole Is Not Alone by Maya Tatsukawa (Henry Holt and Company)

"In this cozy picture book about friendship, Mole anxiously decides to journey through underground tunnels to attend a party."

Picture Book / Early Reader Must-Reads

• When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni and Peter H. Reynolds (Scholastic)
• If the Rivers Run Free by Andrea Debbink. Nicole Wong, illus. (Sleeping Bear Press)
• A Very Cranky Book by Angela DiTerlizzi and Tony DiTerlizzi (Quill Tree Books / HarperCollins)
• Summer Is for Cousins by Rajani LaRocca. Abhi Alwar, illus. (Abrams Books)
• Homeland by Hannah Moushabeck. Reem Madooh, illus. (Chronicle Books)
• Everything Possible by Fred Small. Alison Brown, illus. (Nosy Crow)
• Yoshi’s Big Swim by Mary Wagley Copp. Kaja Kajfež, illus. (Capstone Editions)
• Food for the Future by Mia Wenjen. Robert Sae-Heng, illus. (Barefoot Books)
• Nana and Me by Jane Yolen. Sejung Kim, illus. (Bushel & Peck Books)