Author Sarah Peterson at her book launch on February 21 at the Minnesota History Center
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in the Heffelfinger Room of the Minnesota History Center, a full house celebrated the release of MNHS Press's first book of spring 2026, Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart by Sarah Peterson. Featuring sweet treats from the book, a cake decorated with the cover image, and vintage teacups filled with fresh flowers, the event paid tribute to the intergenerational community of home cooks in Minnesota who shared treasured recipes and the tales behind them with Sarah, the creative force of Vintage Dish and Tell, who lovingly reproduced them in the book. Signed copies are available for purchase at the Minnesota History Center Museum Shop while they last. Sarah has a full calendar of events this spring, including dates at the Oliver Kelley Farm on April 11 and Mill City Museum on June 13. This stylish and appetizing cookbook is the perfect gift for loved ones or for yourself!
Two new children's picture books help readers get a jump on spring gardening and foraging. Complementing Julia Child: A Recipe for Life, currently on display at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, our March releases continue a food theme started with February's release of the cookbook Dish and Tell by Sarah Peterson.
Carolyn Olson
As young Pearl tends to her urban garden in the tradition of her mother and grandmother, her dedication and generosity inspire family members to share in the work and reap the rewards.
"Dynamic folk art and dialogue-filled text tells a story of summer garden success in this bright-eyed book from Olson. . . . Crisp black outlining, stylized figures portrayed with brown skin tones, and a mosaic-like garden of flattened forms combine to produce a portrait of community vibrancy that showcases how gardens can yield both food and fraternity." —Publishers Weekly
Pub date: March 3, 2026. Book launch: March 14, 2026, 2:00 PM, Duluth Public Library, Duluth
Story by Tanaǧidaŋ To Wiŋ Tara Perron
Illustrations by Holly Young
Through words and images, this tender story from educator and healer Tanaǧidaŋ To Wiŋ Tara Perron, illustrated with evocative ledger-style artwork by Holly Young, highlights the treasures of an abundant prairie landscape. In this Dakota story, a grandmother passes down traditional knowledge to her granddaughter during a walk through an abundant prairie landscape.
Pub date: March 31, 2026. Book launch: April 18, 10:30 AM, Minnesota History Center, St. Paul
3/11/2026, 4:00 PM, Drew M. Ross, Becoming the Twin Cities, Edina Senior Center, the Friends of the Edina Library, Edina
3/19/2026, 7:00 PM, Drew M. Ross, Becoming the Twin Cities, University Club, St. Paul
3/21/2026, 10:45 AM, Carolyn Olson, Pearl's Garden, Next Chapter Booksellers, St. Paul
3/22/2026, 10:00 AM, Carolyn Olson, Pearl's Garden, East Side Food Co-Op, Seed Starting Party, Minneapolis
3/28/2026, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, Kowalski's, Excelsior
3/28/2026, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, Kowalski's, Eden Prairie
3/14/2026, 2:00 PM, Carolyn Olson, Pearl's Garden, Duluth Public Library, Green Room, (book launch), Duluth
3/19/2026, 6:00 PM, Ka F. Wong, Enmity and Empathy, Rice County Historical Society, Faribault
3/19/2026, 5:30 PM, Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, Lykke Books, New Ulm
3/28/2026, 11:30 AM, Carolyn Olson, Pearl's Garden, Zenith Bookstore, Duluth
4/8/2026, 6:00 PM, Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, The Bookstore at Fitger's, Books and Bites series, (ticketed), Duluth
4/11/2026, 1:00 PM, Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, Oliver Kelley Farm, (ticketed), Elk River
Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, "Cookbook author draws recipes from childhood in Cloquet," Yahoo Life
Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, "Aunt Sally's Cookies," Twin Cities Live, KSTP
Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, "Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart," KARE 11 Saturday, KARE 11
Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, "New MN Cookbook spotlights comforting family recipes," Ham Radio, KAXE
Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, "'Dish & Tell': Honoring the Women Who Feed Us," Minnesota Monthly
David LaRochelle and Colleen Muske, How to Draw a Tree, "David LaRochelle and the Magic of Storytelling," White Bear Lake Magazine
Conceived as a way to launch the inaugural Aquatennial Celebration, the Paul Bunyan Canoe Derby was a 450-mile race that took place on the Mississippi River between 1940 and 1960. Teams of two paddlers raced in stages from Bemidji to Minneapolis, with stops in Grand Rapids, Palisades, Aitkin, Brainerd, Little Falls, St. Cloud, and Anoka. In some years, the race included a stop at Bena on Lake Winnibigoshish to mitigate the dangerous crossing.
From its founding in 1903 until the mid-1930s, the Citizens Alliance of Minneapolis fought organized labor with vigor, determination, imagination, and money. It scored victory after victory. But the Great Depression, the New Deal, and determined labor organizers eventually defeated the alliance and established labor unions as fixtures in the Minneapolis and Minnesota economy.
Photography by Lindsey Miller
Blending traditional knowledge and Western science, this collection of family stories, healing recipes, and profiles of plants common in Minnesota celebrates age-old wisdom and cutting-edge research.
During early years in Laos, May Lee trained as a niam tshuaj, a plant-based healer and keeper of herbal plants, a role customarily handed down from mother to eldest daughter. When she fled to Thailand and then the United States in 1980, May brought preserved cuttings, which she eventually cultivated in Minnesota. She passed along her knowledge to daughters Zongxee and Mhonpaj, who likewise became herbalists and farmers.
Among other traditional uses, Hmong medicinal herbs are essential ingredients in a special chicken soup consumed for postpartum healing. In Tshuaj Ntsuab (plant medicine), a recipe for this nourishing soup accompanies descriptions of additional cultural practices, herbal remedies, and growing techniques that are part of Hmong oral tradition. Through detailed photographs, botanical information, and scientific research, this compendium profiles forty-four medicinal plants that are important to the culture and diets of Hmong people around the world.
Pub date: 4/14/2026. Book launch: 5/5/2026, 7:00 PM, Magers and Quinn Booksellers, Minneapolis
A compelling history of the often overlooked work of contemporary Native American women who took action to strengthen the bonds within and among their urban communities.
From the 1960s through the 1990s in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Native women activists helped build institutions that sustain urban Indigenous communities to this day. Weaving Community pays tribute to figures such as Vernell Wabasha, Winifred Jourdain, Bonnie Wallace, and Laura Waterman Wittstock, leaders in addressing the needs of Native people living in the metropolitan area. Thanks to their combined efforts, the Twin Cities gave rise to noteworthy organizations including the Indian Health Board of Minneapolis, the first off-reservation health care center for Indigenous people; MIGIZI, a nonprofit that supports the educational, economic, and cultural needs of Indigenous youth; and Project STAIRS, which addressed the mistreatment of Native students in public schools and laid the foundation for the University of Minnesota’s American Indian Studies program.
Drawing on oral histories and individual interviews, Audrey Thayer and Colette Hyman share powerful testimonies of urban Native community building. The two dozen Dakota, Anishinaabe, and Ho-Chunk women who tell their stories in Weaving Community display the cultural values of strong female leadership as well as the vital importance of preserving traditions, ceremonies, and languages. At a crucial moment in history, these women persevered so that Indigenous people in the Twin Cities could lead lives of dignity and cultural integrity.
Pub date: 4/28/2026. Book launch: 5/21/2026, 6:00 PM, Next Chapter Booksellers, St. Paul
North Woods GirlStory by Aimée Bissonette, Illustrations by Claudia McGehee
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A Woman's War, Tooby Virginia Wright-Peterson
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Dakota Women's Workby Colette A. Hyman
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