2025 National Outdoor Book Award Winners

A married couple are cast adrift in the Pacific.  A twelve-year old boy faces off with bear spray against a lion on a Keyan game preserve.  A woman researching wolves struggles to make her mark in the Montana backcountry.

These are some of the story threads running through this year’s crop of winners of the 2025 National Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA).  

Now in its twenty-ninth year, the NOBA program is the nation’s largest award program for outdoor books.  Sponsors of the program include the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Idaho State University and the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education.

Ron Watters, a professor emeritus with the ISU Department of Human Performance and Sports Studies Department, has been director of the book awards program since its inception.  The ISU Outdoor Adventure Center serves as the national home base for the program.  

This year, seventeen books were chosen as winners. The winners are chosen by a panel of judges consisting of educators, academics, book reviewers, authors, editors, and outdoor columnists from throughout the country.

Awards are presented in ten categories ranging from outdoor literature to children’s books.  This was an intensely competitive year, and in several of the categories, the judges assigned two winners.

Below are some winners’ highlights.  (For brevity, subtitles have been left out.  Full titles can be found in the summary at the end.)

Outdoor Literature Category

The winner of the Outdoor Literature category is “A Marriage at Sea” by Sophie Elmhirst.  Elmhirst recounts the true story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s attempt to survive the open Pacific after their sailboat sank.  Their life raft was four-and-half feet in diameter, barely enough room for them to sit, much less sleep.  They had no radio.  The days passed into weeks.  Weeks passed into months.  To survive they needed all of what little resources they had - and they needed one another.  Recounted in crystal-clear clarity, “A Marriage at Sea” is storytelling perfection. 

Journeys Category

Two books were chosen as winners in the Journeys category.  The first is “Killing Buddha on the Appalachian Trail” by John Turner.  His descriptions of the trail, the good and bad days, and the kindness and camaraderie of fellow hikers are so well done that you immediately find yourself immersed in the story.  His approach is a thoughtful one, drawing wisdom from other writers and thinkers and even a bit from Buddhism. 

The other winner is “North to the Future,” by Ben Weissenbach.  Weissenbach is trying to understand what changes are happening in the Arctic as it warms faster than the rest of the globe.  He joins up with one small biological research team for a 42-day, 360-mile journey by foot and packraft across the eastern Brooks Range.  Weissenbach uses this experience and several others to masterfully capture the larger-than-life personalities that he comes across, the starkness and beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, and the complexities of understanding a warming climate.

History/Biography Category

 The History Biography category has two winners.  One is “A Woman Among Wolves,” an autobiography by Diane Boyd chronicling her life as a wildlife biologist.  Often alone in remote northern Montana, she encounters cougars, grizzly bears and, of course, wolves.  Boyd is an engaging writer, splendidly capturing what it is like to be a researcher in remote areas.  Through her stories and experiences, we learn much about wolves, their behavior, and the controversies swirling around their reintroduction in the west.

“The White Ladder” by Daniel Light is the other winner in the History/Biography category.  In this sweeping, exceedingly readable history of mountaineering, Light covers the events and personalities from ancient history up to the 1920’s when the British had set their sights on Everest. 

Natural History Literature Category

Receiving top honors in the Natural History Category is “Born of Fire and Rain” by M. L. Herring.  Herring takes the reader on a series of trips into the Pacific Coastal Forest, a stretch of densely timbered land on the western edge of Oregon and Washington.  She leads us through old growth forests, pointing out the age and height of the giants, takes us upward to explore the canopy, and brings us back down to the forest floor with its insects, fungi and bacteria which recycle old life into new.  The book is passionate, at times poetic, in which natural history, art, and care for the natural environment converge elegantly. 

Children’s Category

The winner of the Children’s Category is “Armando & the Amazing Animal Race” by Diana Schaffter.  It’s about 12-year-old Armando and his grandmother who take off on a race to photograph seven endangered animals in seven different countries.  There’s plenty of intrigue among the competing teams, and as the race goes on, Armando finds himself in some scary situations, including facing off a lion.  Intended for the 8 to 12 year group, the “Amazing Animal Race” will keep youngsters reading into the night.

Receiving the silver medal in the Children’s Category is “Forest Magic for Kids” by Susie Spikol.  Science has taught us so much about the natural world, but nature is also a world of mystery and wonder.  In this bewitching book of discovery for 5-9 year olds, Susie Spikol combines science with fantasy and imagination.  With colorful and fanciful illustrations, it’s a lovely book which will excite young minds and help them discover magic in the outdoor world.

Design and Artistic Merit

The judges loved “Smithsonian Trees of North America.”  Written by W. John Kress, it is the winner of the Design and Artistic Merit category.  The book has over 800 pages of authoritative information which is supplemented with several thousand photographs.  The book is so well designed, so well written and organized, that anyone can benefit from it whether you have a passing interest in trees or an advanced degree in botany. 

Complete reviews of these and the other 2025 winners may be found at the National Outdoor Book Awards website at: www.noba-web.org.

Here is a complete list of winners.  

Outdoor Literature.  Winner.  “A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck.”  By Sophie Elmhirst.   Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House, New York 

Journeys Category.  Winner.  “Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail:  Walking On Through Self-doubt and Aging.”   By John Turner.  The University of Georgia Press, Athens

Journeys Category.  Winner.  “North to the Future: An Offline Adventure Through the Changing Wilds of Alaska.”  By Ben Weissenbach.  Grand Central Publishing, New York

History/Biography.  Winner.  “A Woman Among Wolves: My Journey Through Forty Years of Wolf Recovery.”  By Diane K. Boyd.  Greystone Books, Vancouver

History/Biography.  Winner.  “The White Ladder: Triumph and Tragedy at the Dawn of Mountaineering.”  By Daniel Light.  W. W. Norton & Co., New York 

Natural History Literature.  Winner.  “Born of Fire and Rain: Journey into a Pacific Coastal Forest.”  By M. L. Herring.  Yale University Press, New Haven, CT

Nature and Environment.  Winner.  “Saving the Big Sky: A Chronicle of Land Conservation in Montana.”  By Bruce A. Bugbee, Robert J. Kiesling, John B. Wright.  Photographs by Kevin League.  Oregon State University Press, Corvallis

Nature and Environment.  Silver Medalist.  “Into Whooperland: A Photographer’s Journey with Whooping Cranes.”  Photographs and Text by Michael Forsberg.  Published by Michael Forsberg Photography.  Lincoln, NE

Nature and Environment.  Silver Medalist.  “People the Planet Needs Now:  Voices for Justice, Science, and a Future of Promise.”  By Dudley Edmondson.  Adventure Publications, Cambridge, MN

Design & Artist Merit.  Winner.  “Smithsonian Trees of North America.”  By W. John Kress. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT

Classic Category.  Winner.  “The Crystal Horizon: Everest – The First Solo Ascent”.  By Reinhold Messner.  The Mountaineers, Seattle

Children’s Category.  Winner.  “Armando & the Amazing Animal Race.”  By Diana Schaffter.  Sea Otter Press, Austin, TX

Children’s Category.  Silver Medalist.  “Forest Magic for Kids:  How to Find Fairies, Make a Secret Fort, and Cook Up an Elfin Picnic.”  By Susie Spikol.  Illustrations by Renia Metallinou.  Gibbs Smith, Kaysville, UT

Nature Guides.  Winner.  “California Trees: A Field Guide to the Native Species.”  By Matt Ritter and Michael Kauffmann.  Backcountry Press, Kneeland, CA 

Outdoor Adventure Guides.  Winner.  “Axe in Hand: A Woodchopper’s Guide to Blades, Wood and Fire.”  By Nicole Coenen.  Cool Springs Press, Beverly, MA

Outdoor Adventure Guides.  Silver Medalist.  “Hiking Trails of Mainland Nova Scotia.”  By Michael Haynes.  Goose Lane Editions. Fredericton, New Brunswick

Work of Significance.  Winner. “Mapping the Adirondacks: Colvin, Blake and the First True Survey of the Great Adirondack Wilderness.”  By Thatcher Hogan.  North Country/Globe Pequot, Essex, CT