2025 NAIWE Young Adult Book Winner

 

Author: Valerie Ormond

Fourteen-year-old Sadie Navarro rescued a mare from an auction. Young Sadie believed she had accomplished her most meaningful work—until she found out that a ranch on the other side of the country had adopted the mare. Now Sadie feels like a failure because she cannot ensure that Sunny’s new home will care for the horse in the manner she would prefer.

While Sadie’s love of horses has led her to worry what may become of Sunny, her supportive parents agree to take the family summer vacation at the dude ranch where Sunny now lives.

With the family vacation being scheduled several months out, Sadie struggles with preparations to leave her own horse in good care, but also with many mixed emotions of what she could do as a teenager if she discovers that Sunny is not being well cared for.

Valerie Ormond flawlessly and seamlessly gets in the mind of her main character, a young teenager, to express her many thoughts and her feelings of powerlessness in discovering what kind of a person she wants to become in relation to her current love of horses. This is a well-written book that describes a supportive family helping one another in need.

Congratulations, Valerie Ormond’s Believing in Horses Out West for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!

2025 NAIWE Reference Book Winner

 

Author: Ana María López Jimeno

The Vademecum of English is a reference book filled with charts for teachers and those seeking to understand the nuances of the English language. This reference guide could also be helpful for native Spanish speakers who are learning English as a second language.

With that in mind, introductory material, notes, and symbols are in both English and Spanish. Numerous charts are included to learn more about grammar (30 charts), phonetics (16 charts), etymology (54 charts), and vocabulary (16 charts).

This guide is a handy resource for editors, writers, lovers of the English language, and learners of the English language.

Congratulations, Ana María López Jimeno’s Vademecum of English: A Complete Reference Guide for Teachers and Learners for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!

2025 NAIWE Poetry Winner

 

Author: Britt Kaufmann

Students in high school are often finding themselves and in turn beginning to question the purpose of the subjects they are required to study. Britt Kaufmann is a high school math tutor who writes poetry that reflects on both math and life (sometimes including her life interactions with these high schoolers) and how those two intertwine in Midlife Calculus.

She makes potluck pleasantries:
“What do you do?”

I work at the high school, I say. An extra body in the math
classes, sitting in graffitied desks with the students, modeling
how to take notes and pay attention. I’m right there, to
encourage them to ask questions, give extra help. Sometimes
I “Vanna”—work the problems on the board as the teacher
talks, so he doesn’t lose eye-contact with the kids. It’s a
grant-funded position.

“Oh.”

Britt Kaufmann captures moments from her life and relates them to math concepts, such as the x-axis, irrationals, operations, or infinitesimal changes. She also writers about her experiences with working in a high school.

The parent is confused:

“Why are you calling me?”

I’m part of the Student Success Team, I say. I can set up a
one-on-one meet with your child while they’re on quarantine
to help them complete their math assignments. They can
share their screen and I can walk them through each
problem. Have them email me a time and I’ll send a link.

“Ok.”

Midlife Calculus combines the purpose of math with important life events, such as the pandemic, the educational system, and school shootings, but also with Kaufmann’s life events such as change, time passing by, and love.

The mid-year hire is curious:

“What, exactly, is your role here?”

I am the chewed up piece of gum, I say, trod into the
floorboards so the kids don’t fall through the cracks.

“Uh . . .”

Britt Kaufmann uses this space to share her experiences and love of math and the students she works with, along with her life struggles and limitations as an educator.

My nephew snuggles into my lap:

“What is your job?”

I’m a tutor, I say. You know how your kindergarten class
has an extra adult to help out? I’m like that person, except
at a high school.

“So, you go to the high school and toot?”

Congratulations, Britt Kaufmann’s Midlife Calculus for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!

2025 NAIWE Narrative Nonfiction Winner

 

Author: Mary Jumbelic

As a newly retired expert forensic pathologist, Dr. Mary Jumbelic is pulled into the investigation of a family friend’s death when a former colleague calls to ask her for an opinion on an open case.

As a talented pathologist and writer, Dr. Jumbelic juxtaposes important concepts within the pages: the murdered women speaking contrasted with the new life in young Jumbelic’s pregnant body and the ceremonial bed contrasted with also being the death bed. In addition, she compares her own experience to these silenced women, or perhaps, why she became a pathologist, having been nearly kidnapped from a park at the age of five.

Dr. Jumbelic shares personal accounts, often to lighten the mood, but to also provide additional connection with the women from the stories who can no longer speak. While the stories can be difficult to read, Dr. Jumbelic expresses on behalf of these women the final words they were never allowed to say.

Mary Jumbelic includes many facts and statistics in this novel to help the reader better understand “femicides” – women who have been murdered by husbands, ex-partners, family members, and acquaintances. She also includes information about domestic violence and how can women can reach out for help.

Congratulations, Mary Jumbelic’s Speak Her Name for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!

2025 NAIWE Literary Fiction Winner

 

Author: Elizabeth Tucker

A longer book than average, The Pale Flesh of Wood sits at exactly 300 pages, and it is divided into three books, each labeled with a time frame to link to the progression of the story.

The Pale Flesh of Wood opens with seven-year-old Lyla and her WWII veteran father Charles Hawkins working together to hang a rope for a tire swing. Charles had wanted a tire swing as a child, but his mother never would give permission for him to have one. Now that Charles’s mother has finally given her permission for a tire swing to be hung from one of her trees, it has become Lyla’s job to climb up the tree, drag her body out on the tree’s branch, and tie the rope on the branch, all under the unreliable supervision of her father.

Shortly after the tire swing has been hung, Lyla’s father hangs himself on the very rope that Lyla hung from the branch; Lyle struggles with coming to terms as to whether she helped facilitate the death of her father.

With book 1 occurring primarily in the 1950s, book 2 in the 1960s, and book 3 in 1981, the reader can examine this one significant event, the death of Lyla’s father, and visualize how it affected three generations within the one family.

Elizabeth Tucker does a masterful job of taking the reader on an emotional, realistic roller coaster ride of a tragic situation.

Congratulations, Elizabeth Tucker’s The Pale Flesh of Wood for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!

2025 NAIWE Information Nonfiction Winner

 

Author: Martin Middlewood

As a National Park Service archaeologist at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site located in the states of Washington and Oregon, Martin Middlewood discovered the stories of the air. While he learned that much of the history focused on people or aircraft, he became enamored with the stories related to Pearson Field, the oldest, continuously operating airfield in the United States.

Thus, Martin Middlewood took on the challenge of sharing these stories, and he does so while intriguing the reader with the history and the little-known, but amusing facts about the challenges that the people of Pearson Field faced.

In Hidden History of Pearson Field, Middlewood shares stories about people and their adventures as they flew hot air balloons, the role Pearson Field played in World War I, how Pearson Field served the Army Air Corps, and now as the field has become a historic site.

Congratulations, Martin Middlewood’s Hidden History of Pearson Field for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!

2025 NAIWE Genre Fiction Winner

 

Author: Nikki Minty

Monroe Morgan has been waiting to turn eighteen and move out of his mother’s rundown shack. However, shortly before his move away from his drug-addicted and abusive, he meets Indi, a battered neighbor who is confined by the teachings of The Church of Salvation. As Monroe and Indi’s new friendship develop, Monroe’s life takes a turn for the worse, if that is even possible, when a confrontation with Indi’s father leads to Monroe’s arrest and confinement in a hospital for drug-induced psychosis.

Nikki Minty is a skilled writer, writing in the first person without the feeling of a lot of telling. However, what makes her skill stand out even more is the fact that she writes in the first person of multiple characters. Each chapter is so well developed, along with the narrator, that the reader can easily follow along and not forget who is leading the story.

To keep the writer engaged in the story, Nikki goes back and forth between two narrators for over 80 pages before introducing another first-person narrator. Each of these characters are very different, allowing the reader to easily distinguish them and keep up with the plot line.

Congratulations, Nikki Minty’s Psychosis Diagnosis for being a NAIWE 2025 Book Award winner!