Weber and publisher Sparky Stensas' Stone Ridge Press won the Independent Book Publishers Association's Benjamin Franklin silver award.

The indie book award program recognizes excellence in books published during calendar year 2018. Out of nearly 1,500 entries, one gold winner and two silver winners were named in each category. More than 150 librarians, booksellers and design and editorial experts — most of whom have decades of book industry experience — judge the books submitted.

Weber, a retired science teacher at Marshall School in Duluth and a naturalist and Duluth News Tribune nature columnist, lives outside Barnum, Minn. Stensaas, of Wrenshall, Minn., is the founder of Stone Ridge Press, which publishes regional and national outdoors and nature books. He is also the executive director of Friends of Sax-Zim Bog.