8th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards
Honoring books published in 2007.
Fiction Award
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books )
From the MassBook Judges:
"The exuberance of the language, both English and Spanish,
creates a world and characters that immediately involve the reader.
The novel is at once a history of the Dominican Republic in modern
times and a close study of immigrants in the United States, of migrants returning to their homeland, and of those who never left that homeland.
Oscar Wao is unlike any other novel of immigration that we know. It
breaks most of the conventions of the immigrant novel, refusing to
be restricted to any one nation, and has all the makings of a classic."
Reading Guide
Fiction Honors
The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett (W.W. Norton)
From the MassBook Judges:
"Barrett interweaves history, science, and complex characterization in fine, clear writing that brings even minor characters into vivid and believable relief. The time is just before and into the early days of the entry of the United States into World War I. Readers are involved in the repressive patriotic hysteria of the times that was fostered by the government, considering this dynamic both within the setting of the novel, a state hospital for men and women with tuberculosis, and, inevitably, from our position in early 21st century United States, which has endured its own share of patriotic hysteria."
Like You'd Understand Anyway by Jim Shepard (Knopf)
From the MassBook Judges:
"This collection, from a masterful writer of short
stories, moves, story by story, across time and place from
Australia, to Kazakhstan, and Texas, from northern Britain in
Roman times, on to the 18th century, and on into our contemporary
world. The tone and narrative of each story are precisely suited
to the world they create. Shepard blessedly asks us to move
outside the realities we think we know and to encounter what
seems strange. This is a fine work from a major writer."
Reading Guide
Nonfiction Award
Salem Witch Judge by Eve LaPlante (Harper One)
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
"In Salem Witch Judge Eve LaPlante, Samuel Sewall's descendant, draws
on her ancestor's personal diaries and archival documents to write
this original character study of Sewall, the one judge at the Salem
Witch Trials of 1690 who repented. He then authored "The Selling of
Joseph," America's first antislavery tract, supported the rights of Native Americans, and published an essay affirming the equality of the sexes. LaPlante brings fresh insight to her account of this complex, compelling
founder, Samuel Sewall, which she wrote from her home in Brookline,
where she lives with her family on land once owned by Judge Sewall."
Reading Guide
Guide from Author's Website
Nonfiction Honors
Leviathan by Eric Jay Dolin (W.W. Norton )
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
"Eric Jay Dolin brings passion, imagination and knowledge to Leviathan,
his book about the “iron men in wooden boats” who hunted whales for three centuries, extracting oil for lamps, grease for gears, spermaceti for candles, ambergris for perfumes, and inspiring monsters of the imagination –
particularly Melville’s Moby-Dick, a novel based on the actual tale of a
sperm whale ramming and sinking the whale ship Essex in 1820.
A historian and environmental biologist, Dolin, who lives with his wife and children in Marblehead, Massachusetts, has written a wonderful
account, filled with compelling sea stories, salty characters,
lore and learning of this epic, now mythic industry."
Reading Guide
Eden's Outcasts by
John Matteson (W.W. Norton)
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
"Eden’s Outcasts provides a fresh perspective on one of America’s most important families, the Alcotts, particularly upon visionary Bronson and
his brilliant daughter, Louisa May. In an age of idealism, Bronson was exemplary in undertaking utopian projects but feckless in carrying them
out; in an era of civil war and woman’s rights, Louisa May was untiring
in her commitment to reform and to success in her literary career, creating
in her novels a myth of family felicity which Matteson clarifies. This account
of the Alcotts is lucid and lively, offering an original reading of a quirky, compelling family. John Matteson is a professor of English at John
Jay College in New York City, where he lives with his family and,
happily for us, writes about Massachusetts."
Poetry Award
Blackbird and Wolf by Henri Cole (Farrar,
Straus and Giroux)
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
“'The mind is the most interesting thing to me,' Henri Cole
writes, and his poems in Blackbird and Wolf work to fuse the
mind and the world, meditation and observation, until what
is seen becomes what is felt. Beneath their lyrical surfaces—
quiet, intimate, precise—sorrow, fear, and emptiness make their
unavoidable claims. And yet sometimes the apparent chaos of life is 'synthesized into something beautiful.' That kind of difficult beauty
is what these intelligent and probing poems aim to discover, and reveal."
Reading Guide
Poetry Honors
If No Moon by Moira Linehan (Southern Illinois UP)
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
"If No Moon is a cohesive and brave collection of
lyric poetry that invites the reader to explore the author's
devotion to embracing life, grieving death and pursuing
creativity. Moira Linehan's confident use of language,
accentuated by evocative line breaks, is visual and revelatory.
The poems beckon us to return for multiple readings."
Reading Guide
Gulf Music by Robert Pinsky (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
From the MassBook Judges:
"In Gulf Music, former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
asks of himself and his poetry a deep civic engagement.
He explores the intersections between individual, cultural, and
political memory through the idiosyncratic notion of forgetfulness,
creating poems in which traces of the past from popular songs to
political atrocities form a palimpsest of America's present."
Reading Guide
Children's / Young Adult Literature Award
Whale Port by Mark Foster and Gerald Foster (Houghton Mifflin )
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
"One cannot celebrate the history of Massachusetts without examining
the history of the whaling industry, and Whale Port provides younger
readers with a rich opportunity to do just that. The book creates a literal
and visual history of one village and its changing relationship to whales. Readers will embrace the main story with its detailed and handsome illustrations and will be drawn back again to appreciate other layers of information about daily life provided by the smaller text and pictures that describe candlewick processes, whaling voyages, and boat building. Whale Port presents us with a rich understanding of an industry that
has evolved from hunting to watching as our commonwealth has
developed from colonial times to the present day."
Reading Guide
Children's / Young Adult Honors
The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies (Houghton Mifflin)
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From the MassBook Judges:
"Lemonade War authentically captures the voice of two siblings,
Evan and Jessie Treski, engaged in a battle of wills through the competitive spirit of free trade. On one level this is a simple story of natural sibling rivalry with bittersweet moments of honesty, love and forgiveness. Yet this ‘War of
the Lemons’ tale also introduces its readers to real math problem-solving, philanthropy and basic principles of entrepreneurship. Young people
who share Evan's insecurity about math or Jessie’s social awkwardness
may come to see that being the smartest or most popular can sometimes
come through teamwork. And that’s one of the best returns on an investment
in a chapter book--convincing younger readers not only of their own worth,
but also of the value of family and of the world around them."
Bravo Zulu, Samatha! by Kathleen Duble (Peachtree Publishers )
Video of Remarks at MassBooks
From MassBook Judges:
"Samantha, a twelve year-old information maven, is not pleased to
be spending summer vacation at her maternal grandparents’ home. The
feisty heroine believes that her grandfather -- the Colonel – has one mission,
to chip away at her self-confidence by disregarding her gift of recall for Guinness Book of World Records trivia and ceremoniously eclipsing her
talent with his vast knowledge of aviation fact. Young readers come to learn aviation terminology and develop a greater understanding of women’s contributions to aviation history. Moreover, this novel, filled with fast-moving dialogue and heightened suspense, leads it readers through considerations of the themes of validation, respect, and self-worth as it develops the intergenerational relationship between its mercurial main characters. "
MassBook Judges for the 8th Annual Awards
Vickie Beene-Beavers, Youth Services, Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System
Claire A. Buck, Professor, Wheaton College (Norton)
Katherine Dibble, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners & Women’s National Book Association/Boston Chapter
Lorraine Dagostino, Professor of Education, UMass Lowell
Lisa Gagnon, Harvard Public Library
Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe & contributor, interactive Literary Tour of Boston
Shaun O’Connell, Professor of English, U Mass Boston, author of Imagining Boston
Mimi Powell, Baker’s Books (Dartmouth)
Lawrence Raab, poet and Professor of English, Williams College (Williamstown)
Barry O’Connell, Professor of American Literature, Amherst College
Meg Richardson, The Book Rack (Newburyport)
Vanessa Vargas, Forbes Library (Northampton)
Press Release Announcing Awards