Book awards grow like weeds, but that is not a bad thing. Acclaim (or at least recognition) is a way to find out about the notable, the rare, the special in the vast flood of books. Over the years we have discovered that some awards are more trustworthy or more relevant to our customers than others. The award winners and sometimes the nominees are featured here. A quick explanation:
the Caldecott Medal is intended for the best illustrated children’s book,
the Newbery Medal is intended for the best young adult book (flexible in definition),
the National Book Award is given by the National Book Foundation,
the National Book Critics’ Circle Award by a professional association of American book review editors and critics (originally the Algonquin Round Table),
the Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America,
the Hugo Award by the yearly World Science Fiction Convention (professional affiliation not required),
the Nebula by the Science Fiction Writers of America,
the Spur Award by the Western Writers of America,
the Booker Prize by a changing committee of eminent UK writers and critics,
and the Pulitzer Prize by Columbia University as endowed by newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer.
As a reminder, the Nobel Prize for Literature is for a lifetime body of work, not for a single work in a particular year, as are all the others featured here.
Frank Little and the Iww: The Blood that Stained an American Family
Frank Little and the Iww: The Blood that Stained an American Family
2018 Spur Award, Best Western Biography
2018 Spur Award, Best Western First Nonfiction Book
2018 Texas Association of Authors, Best Historical Nonfiction
Foreword INDIES, Biography (Finalist)
2018 Caroline Bancroft History Prize, Colorado/Western American History, Western History and Genealogy Department Denver Public Library
Franklin Henry Little (1878–1917), an organizer for the Western Federation of Miners and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), fought in some of the early twentieth century’s most contentious labor and free-speech struggles. Following his lynching in Butte, Montana, his life and legacy became shrouded in tragedy and family secrets. In Frank Little and the IWW, author Jane Little Botkin chronicles her great-granduncle’s fascinating life and reveals its connections to the history of American labor and the first Red Scare.
Beginning with Little’s childhood in Missouri and territorial Oklahoma, Botkin recounts his evolution as a renowned organizer and agitator on behalf of workers in corporate agriculture, oil, logging, and mining. Frank Little traveled the West and Midwest to gather workers beneath the banner of the Wobblies (as IWW members were known), making soapbox speeches on city street corners, organizing strikes, and writing polemics against unfair labor practices. His brother and sister-in-law also joined the fight for labor, but it was Frank who led the charge—and who was regularly threatened, incarcerated, and assaulted for his efforts. In his final battles in Arizona and Montana, Botkin shows, Little and the IWW leadership faced their strongest opponent yet as powerful copper magnates countered union efforts with deep-laid networks of spies and gunmen, an antilabor press, and local vigilantes.
For a time, Frank Little’s murder became a rallying cry for the IWW. But after the United States entered the Great War and Congress passed the Sedition Act (1918) to ensure support for the war effort, many politicians and corporations used the act to target labor “radicals,” squelch dissent, and inspire vigilantism. Like other wage-working families smeared with the traitor label, the Little family endured raids, arrests, and indictments in IWW trials.
Having scoured the West for firsthand sources in family, library, and museum collections, Botkin melds the personal narrative of an American family with the story of the labor movements that once shook the nation to its core. In doing so, she throws into sharp relief the lingering consequences of political repression.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Jane Little Botkin served as a public school teacher for thirty years before turning to historical investigation and writing. As a high school teacher, she supervised the compilation of fifteen volumes of the student publication A History of Dripping Springs and Hays County (1993–2008), a valuable resource for Texas researchers. In 2008 the Texas state legislature honored her career in education by formal resolution. Botkin continues to contribute to local historic preservation in the Texas Hill Country and New Mexico’s White Mountain Wilderness. Her book Frank Little and the IWW has won two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, the Caroline Bancroft History Prize from the Western History and Genealogy Department of the Denver Public Library, and the Best Historical Nonfiction Award from the Texas Association of Authors. She is currently working on a biography of labor organizer Jane Street.
REVIEWS & PRAISE
“This beautifully written account is also family history at its best. This book deserves to be read as much for its creative methodology as for its fascinating narrative. Insightful and highly recommended.”—Carlos A. Schwantes, author of Radical Heritage: Labor, Socialism and Reform
“Botkin explores the life of Frank Little, a prominent member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during its radical effort to organize laborers in the early 20th century. . . compelling and informative, even for those unfamiliar with the IWW and labor struggles of the time.”—Library Journal
“Both a work of history and biography. . .Little’s is, above all else, a human story about a man who fought for justice and fair treatment for workers, and paid the ultimate price for that fight.”—Foreword Reviews