Connecticut Center for the Book is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Connecticut Book Awards. The awards recognize and honor authors and illustrators who have created the best books in or about our state in the past year.

Winners of the 2020 Connecticut Book Awards

Nonfiction

Yale Needs Women, How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant – Anne Gardiner Perkins, Sourcebooks

Poetry

Winner: Afterswarm– Margot Schilpp, Carnegie Mellon University Press

Honorable Mention: Without My Asking – Robert Cording, CavenKerry Press

Fiction

Winner: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press

Honorable Mention: How Fires End – Marco Rafalà, Little A

Young Readers

Fiction

New Kid – Jerry Craft, HarperCollins Children’s Books

Nonfiction

I See Sea Food, Sea Creatures that Look Like Food – Jenna Grodzicki, Lerner Publishing Group

Picture Books

The Night Is Yours – Abdul-Razak Zachariah, Dial Books for Young Readers

2020 Spirit of Connecticut Winner

Fiction

Old Newgate Road – Keith Scribner, Alfred A. Knopf