Below are all the nominees. (The Star Tribune story seems to be missing a few categories, including the one "Crossing the Canal" is nominated in.)

Children's Literature:
- My Friend, the Starfinder (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division) by George Ella Lyon, Illustrated by Stephen Gammel
- Henry's Amazing Imagination (Viking/Penguin Group) by Nancy Carlson
- The House in the Night (Houghton Mifflin Company) by Susan Marie Swanson, Illustrated by Beth Krommes
- Monkey with a Tool Belt (Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.) by Chris Monroe

General Nonfiction:
- The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald's Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat (Da Capo Press/Perseus Books Group) by Catherine Friend
- A Hard-Water World: Ice Fishing and Why We Do It (Minnesota Historical Society Press) by Greg Breining, Photography by Layne Kennedy
- Potluck Paradise: Favorite Fare from Church and Community Cookbooks (Minnesota Historical Society Press) by Rae Katherine Eighmey and Debbie Miller
- "You Have Been Kind Enough to Assist Me": Herman Stern and the Jewish Refugee Crisis (North Dakota State University Institute for Regional Studies) by Terry Shoptaugh

Genre Fiction:
- A Carrion Death (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers) by Michael Stanley
- Phantom Prey (G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group) by John Sandford
- Red Knife (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, Inc.) by William Kent Krueger
- Stalking Susan (Doubleday/The Doubleday Publishing Group) by Julie Kramer

Memoir & Creative Nonfiction:
- The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (Coffee House Press) by Kao Kalia Yang
- Madness: A Bipolar Life (Houghton Mifflin Company) by Marya Hornbacher
- Renaming the Earth: Personal Essays (The University of Arizona Press) by Ray Gonzalez
- Swallow the Ocean (Counterpoint) by Laura M. Flynn

Minnesota:
- Crossing the Canal: An Illustrated History of Duluth's Aerial Bridge (X-communication) by Tony Dierckins
- Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press) by Barbara W. Sommer
- Landscapes of Minnesota: A Geography (Minnesota Historical Society Press) by John Fraser Hart and Susy Svatek Ziegler
- Minnesota on the Map: A Historical Atlas (Minnesota Historical Society Press) by David A. Lanegran

Novel & Short Story:
- Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire (Coffee House Press) by David Mura
- The Plague of Doves (HarperCollins Publishers) by Louise Erdrich
- Shelter Half (Holy Cow! Press) by Carol Bly
- The Soul Thief (Pantheon Books/Random House, Inc.) by Charles Baxter

Poetry:
- Milk and Tides (Nodin Press) by Margaret Hasse
- National Monuments (Michigan State University Press) by Heid E. Erdrich
- The Sound of It (New Rivers Press) by Tim Nolan
- Yellowrocket (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.) by Todd Boss

Young People's Literature:
- Black Box (Delacorte Press/Random House Children's Books) by Julie Schumacher
- Julia Gillian (and the Art of Knowing) (Scholastic Press/Scholastic Inc.) by Alison McGhee
- Saturday Night Dirt: A Motor Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Will Weaver
- Twelve Long Months (Scholastic Press/Scholastic Inc.) by Brian Malloy