The Connecticut Center for the Book is very pleased to announce the finalists for the 2017 Connecticut Book Awards! The process was vigorous (and long!) and care and consideration was taken with each and every title submitted.

Here are a few factoids:

• One hundred nine titles were submitted as candidates for the Book Awards between January 1 and April 19, 2017 and after review against the guidelines, one hundred titles were admitted into the judging process.
• Each category had five judges with expertise in the literary arts. They reviewed the titles over three months using criteria appropriate to the category.
• Seventeen titles made it to the finalist list.

So with no further ado, the following titles are the finalists for the 2017 Connecticut Book Awards (in alphabetical order by author’s last name):

Fiction

Back Lash by Chris Knopf
I’ll Take You There by Wally Lamb
Shadows of Paris by Eric D. Lehman
Cajun Waltz by Robert H. Patton
Beneath a Shooting Star by Susan Harrison Rashid

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Non-Fiction

Rare Light by Anne Dawson
Never Look an American in the Eye by Okey Ndibe
The Lost White Tribe by Michael Robinson

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Poetry

The Banquet by Gray Jacobik
Barrel Children by Rayon Lennon
The Meeting House by Marilyn Nelson
Fugitives by Danielle Pieratti

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Young Readers

All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor
The Weight of Zero by Karen Fortunati
Ada’s Violin by Susan Hood
The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
Good Night, Bat! Good Morning, Squirrel! by Paul Meisel

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