2023 Oregon Book Awards

The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by Literary Arts to honor the "state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers." This year's finalists are thirty-four Oregonians across seven genre categories chosen from a total of 202 submitted titles.

This list is not the complete list of works by the finalists, see the link above, but a list of books from finalists published in 2022 that are in Libraries in Clackamas County collection. The winners were announced on April 3, 2023.

Updated April 4, 2023
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County)Estacada Library
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Seeking fortune elsewhere : stories
Bhanoo, Sindya
Paper Book
Travelling from Pittsburgh to Washington to Tamil Nadu, these astonishing stories about dislocation and dissonance see immigrants and their families confront the costs of leaving and staying, identifying sublime symmetries in lives growing apart. Includes 'Malliga Homes', selected by Chimamanda...

Winner of the 2023 Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

Room Service Poems, Meditations, Outcries & Remarks
Carlson, Ron.
Paper Book
Sinking Islands continues the story of Bronwyn Artair, a scientist who possesses the power to influence the natural forces of the Earth. After several successful interventions, including one in Siberia, she has gone into hiding, worried about unintended consequences of her actions, as well as...

Finalist for The Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

Denial
Raymond, Jonathan
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE A futuristic thriller about climate change by the acclaimed screenwriter of First Cow, Meek's Cutoff, and HBO's Mildred Pierce. The year is 2052. Climate change has had a predictably devastating...

Finalist for The Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

The boy with a bird in his chest : a novel
Lund, Emme
Paper Book
Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize "A modern coming-of-age full of love, desperation, heartache, and magic" (Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author) about "the ways in which family, grief, love, queerness, and vulnerability all intersect"...

Finalist for The Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

Thrust
Yuknavitch, Lidia
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER THRUST IS: "Epic." -The New York Times "A triumph." --Elle "Stunningly beautiful." --The Daily Beast "Both of the moment and utterly timeless." --Chicago Review of Books "A book to take in...

Finalist for The Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

Husbandry : poems
Dickman, Matthew
Paper Book
An intimate, moving volume of poems on the anxieties and love of single fatherhood and domestic life. Guided by acclaimed poet Matthew Dickman's signature "clarity and ability to engage" (David Kirby, New York Times), Husbandry is a love song from a father to his...

Finalist for The Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry

The day I die : the untold story of assisted dying in America
Hannig, Anita
Paper Book
An intimate investigation of assisted dying in America and what it means to determine the end of our lives. In this groundbreaking book, award-winning cultural anthropologist Anita Hannig brings us into the lives of ordinary Americans who go to extraordinary lengths to set the terms of...

Finalist for The Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction

When the moon turns to blood : Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a story of murder, wild faith, and end times
Sottile, Leah
Paper Book
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD examines the culture of end times paranoia and a trail of mysterious deaths surrounding former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, grave digger turned doomsday novelist, Chad Daybell. When police in Rexburg, Idaho...

Finalist for The Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction

Northern Paiutes of the Malheur : high desert reckoning in Oregon Country
Wilson, David H., Jr.
Paper Book
2023 Oregon Book Award Finalist In 1870 a twenty-six-year-old Paiute, Sarah Winnemucca, wrote to an army officer requesting that Paiutes be given a chance to settle and farm their ancestral land in Oregon Country. The eloquence of her letter was such that it made its way...

Finalist for The Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction

Diary of a misfit : a memoir and a mystery
Parks, Casey
Paper Book
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced...

Winner of the 2023 Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction

The Ground at My Feet Sustaining a Family and a Forest
Stinson, Ann
Paper Book
Ann Stinson grew up on her family's tree farm in southwestern Washington state, on a ridge above the Cowlitz River. After building a life in New York and Portland, she returned home at the age of fifty, when her brother's death from cancer left her manager and co-owner of three hundred acres planted...

Finalist for The Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction

Little monarchs
Case, Jonathan
Paper Book
A ten-year-old girl may be the only person who can save humanity from extinction in this exciting graphic novel adventure. It's been fifty years since a sun shift wiped out nearly all mammal life across the earth. Towns and cities are abandoned relics, autonomous...

Finalist for The Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade & Young Adult Literature

The care and keeping of Freddy
Long, Susan Hill
Paper Book
For fans of Kate DiCamillo and Sharon Creech comes this "both raw and warm in its compassionate telling" (Publishers Weekly) middle grade novel about a young girl, her pet bearded dragon, and the friends who make her summer one to remember. Georgia Weathers's worry machine...

Finalist for The Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade & Young Adult Literature

Sir Fig Newton and the science of persistence
Thomas, Sonja (Children's author)
Paper Book
From the Desk of Zoe Washington meets Ways to Make Sunshine in this "noteworthy" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) middle grade novel about a determined young girl who must rely on her ingenuity and scientific know-how to save her beloved cat. Twelve-year-old...

Finalist for The Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade & Young Adult Literature

Pig and Horse and the something scary
Abbott, Zoey
Paper Book
"I have something in my head and it is scaring me," Pig said. "What is it?" asked Horse. "I can't say. I'm trying to ignore it." Pig can't stop thinking about something that is bothering her. Try as Horse might to get her mind off of it-with bike...

Finalist for The Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature

Arab Arab all year long!
Camper, Cathy
Paper Book
Celebrate the beauty and diversity of life in the Arab diaspora throughout the year. Wrapping grape leaves, playing doumbek, drawing henna tattoos, we're Arab, Arab, Arab, the whole year through! Yallah! From January to December, join some busy kids as...

Finalist for The Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature

Counting to bananas : a mostly rhyming fruit book
Tillotson, Carrie
Paper Book
A hilarious, mostly-rhyming picture book about a banana and narrator who can't quite agree on what their book is about. Perfect for fans of Mo Willems' We Are in a Book and Adam Rex's Nothing Rhymes With Orange! "Mo Willems fans will give this book one, two, three, four...

Finalist for The Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature

Dream, Annie, dream
Brown, Waka T.
Paper Book
In this empowering deconstruction of the so-called American Dream, a twelve-year-old Japanese American girl grapples with, and ultimately rises above, the racism and trials of middle school she experiences while chasing her dreams. As the daughter of immigrants who came to...

Winner of the 2023 Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade & Young Adult Literature

Every bird a prince
Reese, Jenn
Paper Book
Nominated for the 2023 Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction A girl's quest to save a forest kingdom is intertwined with her exploration of identity in Every Bird a Prince, a gorgeous middle-grade contemporary fantasy by Jenn Reese, the...

Finalist for The Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade & Young Adult Literature


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