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Great Reads From Great Places

2025 Library of Michigan For Libraries Michigan Center for the Book National Book Festival 2024 Desk
Library Of Michigan

Great Reads From Great Places

Great Reads from Great Places - Michigan Selections

2025 Library of Michigan For Libraries Michigan Center for the Book National Book Festival

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival. Books are selected by the local Center for the Book affiliate, with titles for both children and adults. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage.

Learn more about the titles representing Michigan on the Great Reads from Great Places list.

Great Reads from Great Places - Current Michigan Selections

2025 Library of Michigan For Libraries Michigan Center for the Book Great Reads from Great Places Dearborn

Adult Selection - "Dearborn: Stories" by Ghassan Zeineddine

Spanning several decades, Ghassan Zeineddine's debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn. In 10 tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, home and belonging, and more. By turns wildly funny, incisive, and deeply moving, Dearborn introduces readers to an arresting new voice in contemporary fiction and invites us all to consider what it means to be part of a place and community, and how it is that we help one another survive.
2025 Library of Michigan For Libraries Michigan Center for the Book Great Reads from Great Places Strikers

Youth Selection - "Strikers: A Graphic Novel" by Kiel Phegley

Hockey―and life―keep handing both Evan and Bobby losses. Their team, the Strikers, has a roster of rejects in hand-me-down coats and lacks good equipment, a deep bench, and a coach who shows up on time. Their town of Flint, Michigan, has been down on its luck their whole lives. The boys may not understand each other, but together, they’ll find their reasons to keep taking the ice.
  • 2025 - Dearborn: Stories by Ghassan Zeineddine (For Adults)
  • 2025 - Strikers: A Graphic Novel by Kiel Phegley (For Youth)
  • 2024 - Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm by Dan Charnas (For Adults)
  • 2024 - Shapes, Lines, and Light: My Grandfather’s American Journey by Katie Yamasaki (For Youth)
  • 2023 - Tin Camp Road: A Novel by Ellen Airgood (For Adults)
  • 2023 - Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (For Youth)
  • 2022 - RESPECT: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul by Carol Boston Weatherford
  • 2021 - The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh by Supriya Kelkar
  • 2020 - Sport: Ship Dog of the Great Lakes by Pamela Cameron
  • 2019 - Nature’s Friend: The Gwen Frostic Story by Lindsey McDivitt
  • 2018 - Clever Beatrice: An Upper Peninsula Conte by Margaret Willey
  • 2017 - Mackinac Bridge: The 5 Mile Poem by Gloria Whelan
  • 2016 - Tallulah: Mermaid of the Great Lakes by Denise Brennan-Nelson
  • 2015 - Bernida: A Michigan Sailing Legend by Al Declercq, Tom Ervin & Gloria Whelan
  • 2014 - Bluffton: My Summers with Buster Keaton by Matt Phelan
  • 2013 - Bear Has a Story to Tell by Philip C. & Erin Stead
  • 2012 - Magic Trash: A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art by Jane Shapiro
  • 2011 - For the Love of the Tigers: An A-to-Z Primer for Tigers Fans of All Ages by Frederick C. Klein
  • 2010 - January’s Sparrow by Patricia Polacco
  • 2009 - Pocketful of Passage by Loraine Campbell
  • 2008 - Mail by the Pail by Colin Sergei
  • 2007 - Mackinac Bridge: The Five Mile Poem by Gloria Whelan
  • 2006 - The Legend of Michigan by Trinka Hakes Noble & Gisjbert van Frankenhuyzen
  • 2005 - The Edmund Fitzgerald: Song of the Bell by Kathy-Jo Wargin
  • 2004 - M is for Mitten by Annie Appleford
  • 2003 - The Legend of Mackinac Island by Kathy-Jo Wargin
  • 2002 - The Legend of Sleeping Bear by Kathy-Jo Wargin

Great Reads from Great Places Throwback

Michigan's 2022 Great Reads from Great Places: Author Conversation with Carole Boston Weatherford

Join Reference/Michigan Collection Librarian Mindy Babarskis and author Carole Boston Weatherford as they discuss Weatherford's book RESPECT: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, the 2022 Great Reads from Great Places selection from Michigan.