Every year since 2002, a list of books representing the literary heritage of each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa has been distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival. Since 2022, a title for younger readers and one for adults has been selected by each state and territory. Ohio’s books serve as ambassadors to the rest of the nation, highlighting the Buckeye State’s literary heritage and enticing readers to explore our literary landscape… in the case of this year’s adult selection, our literal landscape!
Adult Selection
Light Enters the Grove: Exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park through Poetry edited by Charles Malone, Carrie George and Jason Harris
Light Enters the Grove highlights both Ohio’s own National Park and our diverse poetic heritage!
While there are National Historical Parks and National Monuments within Ohio, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is the only park in Ohio that can be spoken of as in the same caliber as Yosemite National Park, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, Everglades National Park, and the other crown jewels of the National Park system. From 2024 to early 2025, Cuyahoga Valley National Park was also one of only seven national parks chosen by Poet Laureate Ada Limón as part of her Poetry in Parks initiative. You can read about her visit to the park on the Library of Congress blog. Every Ohioan can be proud of the National Park in our backyard! The poetry collection includes a multimedia dimension online with the online CVNP Poetic Inventory exhibit from the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Light Enters the Grove includes a diverse chorus of poetic voices. We encourage readers to use the book as a jumping off point to further explore each of the poets in the anthology as well as the larger poetic landscape of Ohio. Ohio is fortunate to also have been the home of a former U.S. Poet Laureate, Rita Dove, who served in that role from 1993 to 1995. In connection with this selection, the Ohio Center for the Book plans to highlight a number of poets during the National Book Festival and here online. Check our website on June 18* for additional resources for exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park itself as well as Ohio’s broader poetic “landscape.”
Youth Selection
Virginia Hamilton: America’s Storyteller by Julie K. Rubini
Rubini’s biography of Virginia Hamilton is the only full-length, comprehensive biography of the legendary Ohio literary talent written specifically for younger readers by an Ohio author. The biography provides details of Hamilton’s childhood in Ohio, her early career, starting a family, and her many accolades. Rubini takes obvious pleasure in sharing Hamilton’s numerous “first’s,” including the fact that M.C. Higgins, the Great was the first book to receive the National Book Award, the Boston Globe – Horn Book Award, and the prestigious Newbery Medal. Rubini’s colorful details add depth to the book as well, including the fact that one of Hamilton’s favorite series growing up was the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, which also have an Ohio connection! The book can even improve the vocabulary of younger readers with the words used in context, then defined in a list at the end. Rubini quotes Mr. Pool from Hamilton’s The Planet of Junior Brown (“This life holds wonders for us all.”), then follows that quote with “Virginia’s stories are filled with wonder. And just like those fireflies [that “dance above the fields near Virginia’s home in Yellow Springs every summer], her stories are always there, just waiting for us to capture their magic.” Rubini has done a wonderful job of providing readers with an easily-accessible and well-researched story of one of the most-honored authors of children’s literature in the nation.
The Ohio Center for the Book will highlight both Rubini’s biography and Virginia Hamilton’s life and work during the in-person National Book Festival and here online. We’ll be posting additional resources about Virginia Hamilton on our website on June 29**. Be sure to check back!
*Commemorating June 18, 1969, when Walter Hickel, the new Secretary of the Interior under President Nixon, wrote a memo to the NPS Director saying “in our predominantly urban society, we must bring PARKS TO PEOPLE.” (article and memo).
**Commemorating the American Library Association Conference held June 29-July 5, 1975, where Virginia Hamilton accepted the Newbery Medal for M. C. Higgins, the Great.