Join us in celebrating National Native American Heritage Month this November. Below find an array of titles that celebrate and educate on native American peoples’ history, culture, and experiences for all ages in fiction and nonfiction.
Picture Books
Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story
by Danielle Greendeer
This is the story of the first thanksgiving, or Keepunumuk (“the time of the harvest”), from the perspective of a Native American Tribe. Key terms are defined, and more information for further learning is described at the end, including a traditional recipe.
Fry Bread : a Native American Family Story
by Kevin Noble Maillard
Discover the process of making fry bread and the community that cooking creates. As we cook, we observe the shapes, colors, sounds before we finally get to describe the taste of this delicious food.
We Are Still Here! : Native American Truths Everyone Should Know
by Traci Sorell
In this beautifully illustrated text-heavy picture book readers gain the opportunity to “walk a mile in their shoes” and learn about many of the challenges Native Americans in the United States have and currently face. Recommended for grades 2-5.
Middle Grade
Healer of the Water Monster
by Brian Young
Nathan decides to stay with his Nali for the summer. Nali lives in a mobile home on a patch of the family’s traditional land. Nali and Nathan plant some corn, but something’s been stealing their seeds. When his Uncle Jet loses his job and joins Nathan and Nali, Nathan discovers the culprit: a water monster. Except, the water monster is sick.
I Can Make This Promise
by Christine Day
On the first day of school, Edie’s teacher asks a question that haunts her going forward. “Where are you from?” Then, while a friend is at Edie’s house, they discover a box in the attic with a picture of a woman who Edie doesn’t know. The woman looks like Edie, and she shares her name, too.
Young Adult
This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir
by Eddie Chuculate
Chuculate brings the reader along with him through his childhood growing up and moving around in Oklahoma. Readers will learn a great deal about what it means to be a Native American person in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Apple in the Middle
by Dawn Quigley
Apple has some quirky habits, a weird name, and no friends. She’s too white for one crowd and too brown for another, too rich for her classmates, and too public schooled for her neighbors. Then her dad sends her to go stay with her grandparents the summer after sophomore year. And suddenly, she’s welcomed into a community.
Adult
Love is a War Song
by Danica Nava
When Avery’s Rolling Stone magazine cover gets “cancelled” for being cliché “Native American” her career as a pop star falls apart. She returns to her estranged grandmother’s ranch only to feel like an outcast. She makes a truce with the manager, Lucus “Iron Eyes,” to raise money to save the ranch. Then Lucas will show her what it means to be Indian.
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
by Kathleen DuVal
Just after the dawn of a new millennium, 1000 years ago, there was a giant supernova in the sky seen all around the world, and a second that followed approximately 50 years later. This is the starting point of our history for the peoples we refer to today as Native American.
By Michelle Doshi