November is Native American Heritage Month and there’s no better way to celebrate than by picking up a book by an Indigenous author this month. There have been many excellent books for all ages published this year and here are some to choose from.
Picture Books
Swift Fox All Along by Rebecca Thomas (Mi’kmaw), illustrated by Maya McKibbin (Ojibwe and Yeome). When Swift Fox’s father picks her up to go visit her aunties, uncles, and cousins, her belly is already full of butterflies. And when he tells her that today is the day that she’ll learn how to be Mi’kmaq, the butterflies grow even bigger. Though her father reassures her that Mi’kmaq is who she is from her eyes to her toes, Swift Fox doesn’t understand what that means.
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Linstrom (Anishinaabe/Métis), illustrated by Michaela Goade (Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska). Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption.
When We Are Kind by Monique Gray Smith (Cree & Lakot), illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt (Diné (Navajo)). This beautiful picture book looks at how the simple act of being kind, to others and oneself, affects all aspects of a child’s life.
Books for Middle Grade Readers
The Barren Grounds by David Robinson (Norway House Cree Nation). Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home — until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom and a portal that leads to a new reality.
The Case of the Missing Auntie by Michael Hutchinson (Misipawistik Cree Nation). The Mighty Muskrats are off to the city to have fun at the Exhibition Fair. But when Chickadee asks Grandpa what he would like them to bring back from the city, she learns about Grandpa’s missing little sister. She was, they learn, scooped years ago- like many Indigenous children, the government had arranged for her adoption by strangers without her parents’ permission. Now the Mighty Muskrats have a new case to solve: uncovering the whereabouts of Grandpa’s long-lost sister.
Powwow: A Celebration Through Song and Dance by Karen Pheasant-Naganigwane (Anishinaabe). Powwow is a celebration of Indigenous song and dance. It’s a journey through the history of powwow culture in North America, from its origins in colonization, the Indian Act and the Wild West shows of the late 1800s, to the thriving powwow culture of today. As a lifelong competitive powwow dancer, Karen Pheasant-Neganigwane is a guide to the protocols, regalia, songs, dances and even food you can find at powwows from coast to coast, as well as the important role they play in Indigenous culture and reconciliation.
Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo heritage). Guided by her Navajo ancestors, seventh-grader Nizhoni Begay discovers she is descended from a holy woman and destined to become a monsterslayer, starting with the evil businessman who kidnapped her father.
Books for Teen Readers
Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth (Haudenosaunee). The term “Apple” is a slur in Native communities across the country. It’s for someone supposedly “red on the outside, white on the inside.” This is Eric Gansworth’s story and the story of his family, shattering that slur and reclaiming it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache). Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered, in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.
Found by Joseph Bruchac (Nulhegan Abenaki). Nick, a teenage Native American survival expert, needs to avoid being found by the outlaws in relentless pursuit of him. Can he stay safe until the odds are in his favor?
Books for Adult Readers
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo heritage), also available on e-book. Matriarchal clans vie for power as a dead god rises in secret in book one of the Between Earth and Sky trilogy.
Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford (Cherokee). It’s 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and fifteen-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women, presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine’s father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church-a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But she does her best as a devoted daughter, until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever.
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline (Métis), also available on e-book. A story inspired by the Canadian Métis legend of the Rogarou finds a woman reconnecting with her heritage when her missing husband reappears in the form of a charismatic preacher who does not recognize her.
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead (Peguis First Nation). This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer) Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism’s histories.
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott (Haudenosaunee). The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated to “a mind spread out on the ground.” Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas she and so many Native people have experienced.
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians), also available in Large Print, e-book, and downloadable audiobook via Overdrive. Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D. C. , this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet), also available on e-book, CD audiobook, and Playaway audiobook. Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz (Gila River Indian Community). Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz’s brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages–bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers–be touched and held as beloveds.
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry by Joy Harjo (Mvskoke Nation). United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology.
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Sicangu Lakota Nation), also available on e-book. Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment, the kind that’s hard to forget. But when heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal.
