“Mattie and the Machine”
by Lynn Ng Quezon Wins 2023 Grateful American Book Prize

WASHINGTON, DC, October 3, 2023 — Mattie and the Machine [Santa Monica Press], a debut novel by Lynn Ng Quezon, has been selected to receive the 2023 Grateful American Book Prize, according to co-founder David Bruce Smith.

The Santa Monica Press called it “a fictionalized yet historically accurate account of Margaret E. Knight’s fight to obtain recognition as a 19th century female inventor,” while The Kirkus Reviews described it as “an intriguing story about a little-known woman…one of the first women inventors in the post-Civil War era,” and Marissa Meyer of the New York Times said it was “a surprisingly twisty tale, full of betrayal, romance, grit, friendships, machinery, and a protagonist you can’t help rooting for!”

Sheila Turnage’s Island of Spies, a riveting World War II spy mystery, and Sara Latta’s biography, I Could Not Do Otherwise: The Remarkable Life of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker–an early female physician/spy–will receive “Honorable Mentions.”

Smith, also an author, and an education advocate, founded the Grateful American Book Prize with the late Dr. Bruce Cole, the longest-serving chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities [2001 to 2009].

It comes with $13,000 in commemoration of the 13 Colonies; a lifetime membership at the New-York Historical Society, and a medallion created by Smith’s mother, the renowned artist, Clarice Smith.

The ”Honorable Mention” recipients get $500 each, and the medallion.

The Grateful American Book Prize is awarded each year to high quality, 7th to 9th grade-level, historical fiction, and non-fiction, about the events and personalities that have shaped the United States since its founding.

Submit Your Book for the 2023 Grateful American Book Prize

The 2023 Grateful American Book Prize is now accepting submissions. They should be works of non-fiction, fiction, or biographies suitable for 7th to 9th graders, published between August 1, 2022, and July 31, 2023.

“Over the past several decades schools have gradually de-emphasized history in the classroom with the result that kids today do not know who George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were,” according to David Bruce Smith, Co-founder of the Prize. “It’s been a lingering problem for quite some time and so, at the behest and in collaboration with the late Dr. Bruce Cole, the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, we established the Prize as an incentive for authors and publishers to focus on history for young readers. As Dr. Cole put it, ‘we are a country of historical amnesiacs’ and perhaps historical ‘page turners’ for kids may be just what the doctor ordered.”

The Prize comes with $13,000 in commemoration of the 13 original Colonies, a lifetime membership at the New-York Historical Society, and a medallion created by Smith’s mother, the renowned artist, Clarice Smith. Honorable Mention recipients receive $500 each, and the medallion.

Submit your book via the online submission form.