By Erin Wood
Two 2024 Arkansas Center for the Book “Great Reads” selections represented our state at the 2024 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., in August. The 2024 Festival theme was “Books Build Us Up.”
The 2024 Great Read for Youth is the picture book Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees: Discovering Plants and Animals of the Swamp (Et Alia Press, 2023), written and illustrated by Cathy Melvin. The 2024 Great Read for Adults is the novel Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime, 2023).
The Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library in Little Rock annually selects two Great Reads books to represent the state of Arkansas. Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees and Ozark Dogs, among others, are featured as 2024 Arkansas Gems – an annual publication featuring approximately twenty new works about Arkansas or by Arkansas authors with a connection to The Natural State.
During the National Book Festival Roadmap to Reading each year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands is distributed by the Library of Congress Center for the Book.
Great Reads books may be written by authors from the state/territory, take place in the state/territory, or celebrate the culture and heritage of the state/territory. The National Book Festival, held annually in Washington, DC, celebrates books and reading and brings together bestselling authors and thousands of book fans for author talks, panel discussions, book signings, and other activities.
For details, visit: https://www.library.arkansas.gov/programs/arkansas-center-for-the-book/great-reads/
Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs www.etaliapress.com. Wood is author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (April 2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
