Books Chosen to Represent Nebraska at National Book Festival (2024)

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 29, 2024

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Tessa Timperley
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Books Chosen to Represent Nebraska at National Book Festival

“Eat Your Woolly Mammoths!: Two Million Years of the World's Most Amazing Food Facts, from the Stone Age to the Future” and “Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of a Crime” chosen for the National Center for the Book’s Great Reads from Great Places program.

The Nebraska Center for the Bookhas selected one youth book and one adult book by Nebraska authors to represent the state at the2024 National Book Festival:Eat Your Woolly Mammoths! by James Solheimand Dancing with the Octopus by Debora Harding.

Both titles will be part of theNational Center for the Book’sGreat Reads from GreatPlacesprogram.Great Reads from Great Places features books and authors representing the literary heritage of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Marianas. For over 20 years this program has included a highlighted youth title from each affiliate center. In 2022,Great Reads from Great Places began including titles for adults for the first time.

This year's National Book Festival on August 24th will be held in-person in Washington, D.C., but will include many livestreamed and recorded virtual programs celebrating books and authors.

About the Books

“Eat Your Woolly Mammoths!: Two Million Years of the World's Most Amazing Food Facts, from the Stone Age to the Future” by James Solheim

“If there’s one thing that transcends time, it’s our love for food! But what did people generations ago consume? And what will we eat in the years ahead? James Solheim’s Eat Your Woolly Mammoths! serves up the stories behind the world’s most delicious, nutritious, and amazing foods—from the Stone Age to the future. For readers who love the fascinating facts that bring history to life. Let the feast begin!

Would you like a plate of woolly mammoth? Or perhaps a sample of fresh tuna eyeballs? From scorpions on sticks and llama salami to oysters and chocolate chip cookies, you’ll travel through the centuries and around the world and discover the amazing foods that have been eaten—and enjoyed—throughout history.

Eat Your Woolly Mammoths! explores the history of food and is full of fun, digestible facts that young historians, cooks, and scientists will gobble up. An accessible, educational, and funny text combined with laugh-out-loud illustrations make this ideal pick for independent readers and snackers everywhere. A great choice for readers who munched throughRipley’s Believe It or Not: Fun Facts and Silly Stories and the National Geographic Kids: Weird but True books. Includes sidebars, fun facts, recipes, additional resources, and more!”

Nebraska’s Great Reads from Great Places book is chosen from the previous year’s Nebraska Book Award winners and this book was awarded two 2023 Nebraska Book Award in the Children’s Nonfiction Book category and the Children’s Books Design category.

“Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of a Crime” by Debora Harding

This memoir of native Nebraskan, Debora Harding, is all about a traumatic childhood event, the aftereffects of which would change her family forever. Harding expertly weaves the past with the present in a riveting story of survival and family dynamics. Harding’s debut book has been compared to bestsellers like The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and Educated by Tara Westover.

“With remarkable narrative skill, Harding untangles the lingering effects of family dysfunction and criminal trauma. This is a page-turner with a deep heart and soul, full of forgiveness but demanding of accountability.”—BookPage, “Best Books of 2020: Memoirs”

Chosen as the 2024 One Book One Nebraska selection, libraries across Nebraska and other literary and cultural organizations have participated in book discussions, activities, and events that encourage Nebraskans to read and discuss this book.

The Nebraska Center for the Book is housed at the Nebraska Library Commission and brings together the state’s readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, printers, educators, and scholars to build the community of the book, supporting programs to celebrate and stimulate public interest in books, reading, and the written word. The Nebraska Center for the Book is supported by the Nebraska Library Commission.

As the state library agency, the Nebraska Library Commission is an advocate for the library and information needs of all Nebraskans. The mission of the Library Commission is statewide promotion, development, and coordination of library and information services, “bringing together people and information.”

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The most up-to-date news releases from the Nebraska Library Commission are always available on the Library Commission Website, http://nlc.nebraska.gov/publications/newsreleases.