A Minot author will be participating in the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., this fall as well as participating in readings and discussions at select North Dakota libraries through the Great Reads program.

Barb Solberg’s historical fiction, “What We Leave Behind,” and RubyAnn Stiegelmeier’s children’s book, “Sir Rupert and the Battle of the Squirrels,” were selected by the North Dakota State Library’s Center for the Book as North Dakota Great Read titles for 2025.

Each year, the Library of Congress asks each state Center for the Book to select titles that represent the state’s literary landscape to highlight at the National Book Festival, an event showcasing the importance of books and reading, according to the State Library. This year’s national festival will be held on Saturday, Sept. 6, in Washington and online.

Solberg, of Minot, and Stiegelmeier, of Dickinson, also will take part in book tour events, featuring a reading from the author, a question-and-answer discussion and book signing. Libraries chosen to be part of the tour will receive a copy of the book, promotional items, bookmarks featuring the two titles and brochures on the entire Great Reads collection. The State Library has not yet finalized this year’s tour schedule.

According to a synopsis, “What We Leave Behind” tells the story of Norwegian immigrants who send their 18-year-old daughter and her two younger sisters to Norway during the difficult years of the Great Plains Dust Bowl to live with relatives for two years. The oldest sister marries, leaving the younger sisters with no one to take them home.

By 1940, when Germany invaded Norway, the two younger sisters were living with a relative who married a Quisling, a member of the Norwegian Nazi Party. The two sisters miss the last U.S. evacuee ship out of Petsamo, Finland, and soon German soldiers take one sister to Grini, a concentration camp north of Oslo. Eventually she and her older sister both marry men active in the Norwegian Resistance Movement of World War II. Readers wonder, “Will the entire family ever reconnect?”

The historical fiction is based on the true story of Solberg’s grandmother and aunts.

Solberg formerly taught at Magic City Campus and was a writing professor at Minot State University. She published a textbook with Harcourt College Publishers, was a freelance writer for The Minot Daily News in the 1980s and 1990s and has had articles published in North Dakota Horizon magazine. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, and currently serves as board chair for Humanities North Dakota.