GLBA Announces Award Winners

On September 1, the Great Lakes Booksellers Association (GLBA) announced the winners of the 2004 Great Lakes Book Awards, which will be presented at a luncheon on Friday, October 8, during the GLBA fall trade show in Dearborn, Michigan. This year, the association split the children's award into two categories: picture book and chapter book.

This year's Great Lakes Book Award winners are:

Fiction: Ursula Under, Ingrid Hill (Algonquin)
General: One Man's Castle, Phyllis Vine (Amistad/HarperCollins)
Children's Picture Book: Boxes for Katje, Candace Fleming, illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen (Melanie Kroupa Books/FSG)
Children's Chapter Book: Chasing Vermeer, Blue Balliett (Scholastic)

Winners will receive $500 and an award designed and produced by Pewabic Pottery.

Winning titles will be featured in the association's holiday catalog, and GLBA Executive Director Jim Dana noted that the award finalists as a group showed a strength and diversity that make them easy to promote and very salable.

Established in 1995, the Great Lakes Book Awards "recognize and reward excellence in the writing and publishing of books that capture the spirit and enhance awareness of the Great Lakes region." To be eligible, books need to have a Great Lakes theme or setting, and this year's finalists had to be published between June 1, 2003, and May 31, 2004.

For more about the awards and a complete list of the finalists, visit www.books-glba.org.