Kansas Notable Book Awards

2025

• Coco, Snow!, by Julie Mosiman and illustrated by Ellen Youngman
• Dress Me Like a Prizefighter, by Catherine Strayhall
• From the Reservation to Washington: The Rise of Charles Curtis, by Debra Goodrich
• In True Face: A woman's Life in the CIA, Unmasked, by Jonna Mendez
• Las Madres: Latinas in the Heartland Who Led Their Family to Success, by Dennis Raphael Garcia
• The Last Rancher, by Robert Rebein
• The Lies We Conjure, by Sarah Henning
• No Bullet Got Me Yet: The Relentless Faith of Father Kapaun, by John Stansifer
• Not the Worst Friend in the World, by Anne Rellihan
• Outdoor Farm, Indoor Farm, by Lindsay H. Metcalf, illustrated by Xin Li
• Remnants of a Scarlet Flame, by Cindy L. Sell
• The Rhino Keeper, by Jillian Forsberg
• The Switch Point, by A. D. Childers
• Treehouse Town, by Gideon Sterer, illustrated by Kansan, Charlie Mylie
• Wichita Blues: Music in the African American Community, by Patrick Joseph O'Connor

2024

• Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind: James Montgomery and His War on Slavery, by Todd Mildfelt and David Schafer
• Daughter of Chaos, by Sarah Edgerton
• Doomed by Blooms, by Anna St. John
• Grief Said "Have a Seat", by Amanda G. Elsbury
• Henry, Like Always, by Jenn Bailey
• I've Been Fighting This War Within Myself, by Antonio Sanchez-Day and edited by Brian Daldorph
• Into the Sunset: Emmett Dalton and the End of the Dalton Gang, by Ian Shaw
• The Jayhawk: The Story of the University of Kansas's Beloved Mascot, by Rebecca Ozier Schulte
• Kansas City's Montgall Avenue: Black Leaders and the Street They Called Home, by Margie Carr
• Orion O'Brien and the Spirit of Quindaro, by Fran Borin
• Proclaiming the Good News: Mennonite Women's Voices, 1972-2006, by Lois Y. Barrett and Dorothy Nickel Friesen
• Red Rabbit, by Alex Grecian
• Roadside Geology of Kansas, by James S Aber, Susan E. W. Aber, and Michael J. Everhart
• We're Safe When We're Alone, by Nghiem Tran
• Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas, by Jim Minick

2023

• Cabby Potts, Duchess of Dirt – Kathleen Wilford
• Easy Beauty: A Memoir – Chloé Cooper Jones
• Hell's Half-acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, America's First Serial Killer Family – Susan Jonusas
• Justa's Escape: A Journey from WWII Ukraine – Justina Neufeld with Russell Binkley
• Kansas Speaks Out: Poems in the Age of Me, Too – edited by Dennis Etzel, Jr and Jericho Hockett
• Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy – Randal Maurice Jelks
• The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World – David K. Randall
• Native American Stories for Kids: 12 Traditional Stories From Indigenous Tribes Across North America – T. F. Pecore Weso
• A New Guide to Kansas Mushrooms – Sherry Kay
• Nothing but the Dirt: Stories From An American Farm Town – Kate Guerriero Benz
• One Boy Watching – Grant Snider
• River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile – Candice Millard
• The Undead Truth of Us – Britney S. Lewis
• The Vagabond's Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel – Rolf Potts
• Winfield's Walnut Valley Festival – Seth Bate

2022

• Ava: A Year of Adventure in the Life of an American Avocet – Mandy Kern and Onalee Nicklin
• Blue Collar Saint: Poems – Brenda Leigh White
• Field Journal: Volume XIII, 2021, The Santa Fe Trail – Symphony in the Flint Hills
• From This Moment: A Novel – Kim Vogel Sawyer
• The Greatest Thing: A Story About Buck O'Neil – Kristy Nerstheimer and Christian Paniagua
• Haven's Secret (The Powers Book 1) – Melissa Benoist, Jessica Benoist, and Mariko Tamaki
• How to Resist Amazon and Why – Danny Caine
• Killing Dragons: Order of the Dolphin – Kristie Clark
• Mad Prairie: Stories and a Novella – Kate McIntyre
• Policing Sex in the Sunflower State: The Story of the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women – Nicole Perry
• Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains – Lucas Bessire
• Stormbreak: A Seafire Novel – Natalie C. Parker
• A Vote for Susanna: The First Woman Mayor – Karen M. Greenwald and Sian James
• White Hot Hate: A True Story of Domestic Terrorism in America's Heartland – Dick Lehr
• Words Is a Powerful Thing: Twenty Years of Teaching Creative Writing at Douglas County Jail – Brian Daldorph

2021

• All Hallows' Shadow – Michael D. Graves
• The Amelia Six – Kristin L. Gray
• The Chicken Sisters – KJ Dell’Antonia  
• Croaked!: The Misadventures of Nobbin Swill – Lisa Harkrader
• Farmers Unite!: Planting a Protest for Fair Prices – Lindsay H. Metcalf
• Ladybird, Collected – Meg Heriford
• Un Mango Grows in Kansas – Huascar Medina
• Mawson's Mission: Launching Women's Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Kansas – L. Marlene Mawson
• Northern Cheyenne Ledger Art by Fort Robinson Breakout Survivors – Denise Low and Ramon Powers
• People, Pride, and Promise: The Story of the Dockum Sit-in – Prisca Barnes and Priscella Brown
• Prairie Bachelor: The Story of a Kansas Homesteader and the Populist Movement – Lynda Beck Fenwick
• Premeditated Myrtle: A Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery – Elizabeth C. Bunce
• Swimming Shelter: Poems – Al Ortolani
• What Sound is Morning? – Grant Snider
• World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments – Aimee Nezhukumatathil

2020

• Birds, Bones, and Beetles: The Improbable Career and Remarkable Legacy of University of Kansas Naturalist Charles D. Bunker – Charles H. Warner
• A Constellation of Roses – Miranda Asebedo
• Crumbled!: The Misadventures of Nobbin Swill – Lisa Harkrader
• Follow Me Down to Nicodemus Town – A. LaFaye and Nicole Tadgell
• Headwinds: A Memoir – Edna Bell-Pearson
• The Healer's Daughter: A Novel – Charlotte Hinger
• How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together – Dan Kois
• Journey to a Promised Land: A Story of the Exodusters (I Am America) – Allison Lassieur
• Kansas City Chiefs Legends: The Greatest Coaches, Players and Front Office Execs in Chiefs History – Jeff Deters
• A Perfect Silhouette – Judith Miller
• Petroglyphs of the Kansas Smoky Hills – Rex C. Buchanan, Burke W. Griggs, Joshua L. Svaty
• The Reckless Oath We Made: A Novel – Bryn Greenwood
• Steel Tide: A Seafire Novel – Natalie C. Parker
• The Topeka School: A Novel – Ben Lerner
• What Color Is Night? – Grant Snider

2019

• American Heart – Laura Moriarty
• Brown Enough: A Tale of a Mixed-Race Baseball Team Summer of ’56 – Ken Ohm
• Buried in the Suburbs – Jamie Lynn Heller
• The Deepest Roots – Miranda Asebedo
• The Diaries of Reuben Smith, Kansas Settler and Civil War Soldier – Lana Wirt Myers
• Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World – Louis Galambos
• Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River – Max McCoy
• A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools – Rachel Devlin
• Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth – Sarah Smarsh
• Night Out – Daniel Miyares
• No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas – C.J. Janovy
• No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas – Tonya Bolden and Don Tate
• The Pastor Wears a Skirt: Stories of Gender and Ministry – Dorothy Nickel Friesen
• The Saint of Wolves and Butchers – Alex Grecian
• Seafire – Natalie C. Parker

2018

• Bad Kansas: Stories – Becky Mandelbaum
• Cricket in the Thicket: Poems about Bugs – Carol Murray and Melissa Sweet
• Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West – Tom Clavin
• Feet of the Messenger: Poems – H.C. Palmer
• Fireflies in the Gathering Dark: Poems – Maril Crabtree
• Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home – Robert Rebeinsas
• Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign Against Joseph McCarthy – David A. Nichols
• Kansas Baseball, 1858-1941 – Mark E. Eberle
• Kansas Guidebook 2 for Explorers – Marci Penner and WenDee Rowe
• The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery – Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
• Midnight at the Electric – Jodi Lynn Anderson
• The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity – Grant Snider
• Stark Mad Abolitionists: Lawrence, Kansas, and the Battle over Slavery in the Civil War Era – Robert K. Sutton
• That is My Dream! – Langston Hughes and Daniel Miyares
• To The Stars Through Difficulties – Romalyn Tilghman

2017

• Fast-Food Sonnets: Poems – Dennis Etzel Jr.
• Ghost Sign: Poems from White Buffalo – Al Ortolani, Melissa Fite Johnson, Adam Jameson, and J.T. Knoll
• Green City: How One Community Survived a Tornado and Rebuilt for a Sustainable Future – Allan Drummond
• Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill – Candice Millard
• Hurt People: A Novel – Cote Smith
• Ioway Life: Reservation and Reform, 1837-1860 – Greg Olson
• The Last Wild Places of Kansas: Journeys into Hidden Landscapes – George Frazier
• Lost and Gone Forever: A Novel of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad – Alex Grecian
• The Memory of Lemon: A Novel – Judith Fertig
• Mike Torrez: A Baseball Biography – Jorge Iber
• A Nest of Hornets – Robert Krenzel
• Never Enough Flamingos – Janelle Diller
• Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball – Scott Morrow Johnson
• Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild West – Candace Fleming
• The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century – Julianne Couch

2016

• Alphabet School – Stephen T. Johnson
• A Bitter Magic – Roderick Townley
• Bottled: A Mom's Guide to Early Recovery – Dana Bowman
• The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing Up Billy Cody in Bleeding Kansas – Andrea Warren
• Diary of a Waitress: The Not-So-Glamorous Life of a Harvey Girl – Carolyn Meyer
• For the Sake of Art: The Story of a Kansas Renaissance – Cynthia Mines
• Harvey Houses of Kansas: Historic Hospitality from Topeka to Syracuse – Rosa Walston Latimer
• Kansas Trail Guide: The Best Hiking, Biking, and Riding in the Sunflower State – Jonathan Conard and Kristin Conard
• Kansas Wildflowers and Weeds – Michael John Haddock, Craig C. Freeman, and Janet E. Bare
• The Madman and the Assassin: The Strange Life of Boston Corbett, the Man Who Killed John Wilkes Booth – Scott Martelle
• Notorious Kansas Bank Heists: Gunslingers to Gangsters – Rod Beemer
• Sun and Moon – Lindsey Yankey
• To Leave a Shadow – Michael D. Graves
• Twenty-Five Years Among the Indians and Buffalo: A Frontier Memoir – by William D. Street, edited by Warren R. Street
• While the Kettle's On – Melissa Fite Johnson

2015

• 999 Kansas Characters: Ad Astra, a Biographical Series – Dave Webb, Terry Rombeck, and Beccy Tanner
• Bluebird – Lindsey Yankey
• A Carol Dickens Christmas: A Novel – Thomas Fox Averill
• Chasing Weather: Tornadoes, Tempests, and Thunderous Skies in Word and Image – Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Stephen Locke
• The Darkest Period: The Kanza Indians and Their Last Homeland, 1846-1873 – Ronald D. Parks
• The Devil's Workshop: A Novel of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad – Alex Grecian
• Field Guide to the Common Grasses of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska – Iralee Barnard
• Girl in Reverse – Barbara Stuber
• The Kansas Relays: Track and Field Tradition in the Heartland – Joe D. Schrag
• Michael Pearce's Taste of the Kansas Outdoors Cookbook – Michael Pearce
• Music I Once Could Dance To – Roy J. Beckemeyer
• The Ogallala Road: A Memoir of Love and Reckoning – Julene Bair
• Railroad Empire across the Heartland: Rephotographing Alexander Gardner's Westward Journey – by James E. Sherow, photographs by John R. Charlton
• Soldiers in the Army of Freedom: The 1st Kansas Colored, the Civil War's First African American Combat Unit – Ian Michael Spurgeo
• Waiting on the Sky: More Flyover People Essays – Cheryl Unruh

2014

• Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America's Heartland – Nina Mukerjee Furstenau
• The Black Country – Alex Grecian
• Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border – Jonathan Earle & Diane Mutti Burke, Eds.
• A Death at Crooked Creek: The Case of the Cowboy, the Cigarmaker, and the Love Letter – Marianne Wesson
• Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City – Robert Rebein
• Echoes from the Prairie: A Collection of Short Memoirs – Nicole Muchmore, Ed.
• Edmund G. Ross: Soldier, Senator, Abolitionist – Richard A. Ruddy
• The Good Lord Bird – James McBride
• Navigating Early – Clare Vanderpool
• Needle in the Bone – Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
• Of Grave Concern: An Ophelia Wylde Paranormal Mystery – Max McCoy
• Teatime to Tailgates: 150 Years at the K-State Table – Jane P. Marshall
• The Thing About Luck – Cynthia Kadohata
• The Tie That Bound Us: The Women of John Brown's Family – Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz
• Worth the Pain: How Meningitis Nearly Killed Me - Then Changed My Life for the Better – Andy Marso

2013

• The Adventures of Beanboy – Lisa Harkrader
• Beyond Cold Blood: The KBI from Ma Barker to BTK – Larry Welch
• Blackbear Bosin: Keeper of the Indian Spirit – David Simmonds
• The Chaperone – Laura Moriarty
• The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History – Dayton Duncan & Ken Burns
  • (companion book to The Dust Bowl)
• Eisenhower in War and Peace – Jean Edward Smith
• Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854–1894 – Kevin G. W. Olson
• A Kansas Bestiary – Jake Vail & Doug Hitt, and illustrated by Lisa Grossman
• May B. – Caroline Starr Rose
• This Ecstasy They Call Damnation – Israel Wasserstein
• Time's Shadow: Remembering a Family Farm in Kansas – Arnold J. Bauer
• To the Stars Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices – Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ed.
• A Voice for Kanzas – Debra McArthur
• Wide Open – Larry Bjornson
• The Yard – Alex Grecian

2012

• 8 Wonders of Kansas! – Marci Penner
• The Afterlives of Trees – Wyatt Townley
• Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart – Candace Fleming
• Bent Road – Lori Roy
• Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President – Candice Millard
• Doc – Mary Doria Russell
• The Door in the Forest – Roderick Townley
• Liar's Moon – Elizabeth C. Bunce
• My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back to Kansas – Tracy Seeley
• The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory – Ramon Powers & James N. Leiker
• Osa and Martin: For the Love of Adventure – Kelly Enright
• Prairie Fire: A Great Plains History – Julie Courtwright
• Rode – Thomas Fox Averill
• Send Me Work: Stories – Katherine Karlin
• Tapped Out: Rear Naked Chokes, the Octagon, and the Last Emperor: an Odyssey in Mixed Martial Arts – Matthew Polly

2011

• Amy Barickman's Vintage Notions – Amy Barickman
• And Hell Followed With It – Bonar Menninger
• Appetite for America – Stephen Fried
• Baking With Friends – Sharon Davis & Charlene Patton
• Bound – Antonya Nelson
• Crossing the Tracks – Barbara Stuber
• A Distant Home – George Paris
• Flyover People – Cheryl Unruh
• Ghost Stories of the New West – Denise Low
• Life in a Jar – Jack Mayer
• Moon Over Manifest – Clare Vanderpool
• A Prairie Peter Pan – Beverley O. Buller
• Prairie Rhythms – Lana Wirt Myers
• The Scent of Rain and Lightning – Nancy Pickard
• Star Crossed – Elizabeth C. Bunce

2010

• Addie of the Flint Hills: A Prairie Child During the Depression – Adaline Sorace, as told to Deborah Sorace Prutzman
• The Blue Shoe: A Tale of Thievery, Villainy, Sorcery, and Shoes – Roderick Townley, and illustrated by Mary GrandPre
• Carter Finally Gets It – Brent Crawford
• The Evolution of Shadows – Jason Quinn Malott
• Ghost Town – Richard W. Jennings
• A Kansas Year – Mike Blair
• Lisa's Flying Electric Piano – Kevin Rabas
• Nothing Right: Short Stories – Antonya Nelson
• One Kansas Farmer: A Kansas Number Book – Devin Scillian & Corey Scillian
• Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen – Joe Drape
• Silver Shoes – Paul Miles Schneider
• The Storm in the Barn – written and illustrated by Matt Phelan
• To the Stars: Kansas Poets of the Ad Astra Poetry Project – Denise Low, Ed.
• Under Siege!: Three Children at the Civil War Battle for Vicksburg – Andrea Warren
• Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl – Albert Marrin

2009

• Amelia Earhart: the Legend of the Lost Aviator – Shelley Tanaka, and illustrated by David Craig
• Artfully Done: Food, Flowers & Joy Across Generations – RoxAnn Banks Dicker, Ed.
• Burn – Kathleen Johnson
• Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam – Pope Brock
• A Curse Dark as Gold – Elizabeth C. Bunce
• The Guide to Kansas Birds and Birding Hot Spots – Bob Gress & Pete Janzen
• Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate – Kelly Alexander & Cynthia Harris
• Kansas Opera Houses: Actors and Community Events 1855–1925 – Jane Glotfelty Rhoads
• Making History: Quilts & Fabric From 1890–1970 – Barbara Brackman
• Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer – Rolf Potts
• The Nature of Kansas Lands – Beverley Worster, Ed.
• A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir – Donald Worster
• The Pizza Hut Story – Robert Spector
• Seeding Civil War: Kansas in the National News, 1854–1858 – Craig Miner
• Survival of Rural America: Small Victories and Bitter Harvests – Richard E. Wood

2008

• American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China – Matthew Polly
• The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians – illustrated by Brad Sneed
• Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond – Paul Shirley
• The Curse of Catunkhamun – Tim Raglin
• The Farther Shore – Matthew Eck
• From Emporia: The Story of William Allen White – Beverley O. Buller
• Hellfire Canyon – Max McCoy
• Hunger for the Wild: America's Obsession with the Untamed West – Michael L. Johnson
• The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972–2007 – Albert Goldbarth
• A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution – David A. Nichols
• The Middle of Somewhere – J.B. Cheaney
• The Rest of Her Life – Laura Moriarty
• Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep – Michael J. Everhart
  • (companion book to Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure)
• Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey – Jim Reed
• Writing in an Age of Silence – Sara Paretsky

2007

In 2007, 18 Kansas Notable Books were selected; the only year in which it was not a list of fifteen.

• Afoot: A Tale of the Great Dakota Turkey Drive – George Brandsberg
• Angle of Yaw – Ben Lerner
• Ballots and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas – Robert K. DeArment
• Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales From the Tallgrass Prairie – James Hoy
• I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You – Ally Carter
• John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas – Virgil Dean, Ed.
• John Steuart Curry: The Road Home – Alice Bertels
• Kansas Murals: A Traveler's Guide – Lora Jost & Dave Loewenstein
• Light on Main Street: Storytelling by a Country Newspaper Editor – Rudy Taylor
• The Loose Change of Wonder – Steven Hind
• My Little Yellow Taxi – Stephen Johnson
• Next Year Country: Dust to Dust in Western Kansas, 1890–1940 – Craig Miner
• Not Afraid of Dogs – Susanna Pitzer
• Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains – William Ashworth
• Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights – Diane Eickhoff
• Shanghai Shadows – Lois Ruby
• The Virgin of Small Plains – Nancy Pickard
• Words of a Prairie Alchemist – Denise Low

2006

• Airball: My Life in Briefs – L.D. Harkrader
• Capote in Kansas: A Drawn Novel – Ande Parks
• The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy – Thomas Goodrich
• Deputy Harvey and the Ant Cow Caper – Brad Sneed
• The Great Blues – Steve Semken
• A Hungry Heart: A Memoir – Gordon Parks
• In the Small, Small Night – Jane Kurtz
• John Brown, Abolitionist – David S. Reynolds
• The Kansas Guidebook for Explorers – Marci Penner
• Maggie Rose and Sass – Eunice Boeve
• The Moon Butter Route – Max Yoho
• Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea – Michael J. Everhart
• Ordinary Genius – Thomas Fox Averill
• Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas: A Field Guide – Michael John Haddock
• The Youngest Brother: On a Kansas Wheat Farm During the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression – C. Hugh Snyder