During November we celebrate the diverse cultures, history, and stories of the Native Americans. The month is dedicated to honoring their heritage, raising awareness of tribal nations, and acknowledging the challenges they have faced and continue to face.
The first official observance was in 1990 after a congressional declaration by President George H.W. Bush. The Friday after Thanksgiving is designated as Native American Heritage Day, which further highlights the observance.
Native American literature often features a strong connection to nature and spirituality. There is a focus on cultural identity and heritage and themes of resiliance. These stories frequently blend traditional folklore with modern narratives. Often the stories include oral storytelling, the importance of family and community, and a celebration of the past.
The Ribbon Skirt
Author:
Cameron Mukwa
Genre:
Graphic Novel
Summary:
Ten-year-old Anang wants to make a ribbon skirt, a piece of clothing typically worn by women in the Anishinaabe tradition, for an upcoming powwow. Anang is two-spirit and nonbinary and doesn’t know what others will think of them wearing a ribbon skirt, but they’re determined to follow their heart’s desire. Anang sets off to gather the materials needed to make the skirt and turns to those around them—their family, their human and turtle friends, the crows, and even the lake itself—for help. And maybe Anang will even find a new confidence within themself along the way.
Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-to-be Best Friend
Author:
Ellen Oh
Genre:
Realistic Fiction
Summary:
Jo Jo Makoons Azure is a spirited seven-year-old who moves through the world a little differently than anyone else on her Ojibwe reservation. It always seems like her mom, her kokum (grandma), and her teacher have a lot to learn—about how good Jo Jo is at cleaning up, what makes a good rhyme, and what it means to be friendly.
Even though Jo Jo loves her #1 best friend Mimi (who is a cat), she’s worried that she needs to figure out how to make more friends. Because Fern, her best friend at school, may not want to be friends anymore…
Encyclopedia of American Indian History & Culture: Stories, Timelines, Maps, and More
Author:
National Geographic
Genre:
Nonfiction
Summary:
American Indian customs, stories, and history come to life in this important and authoritative reference, artfully designed and packaged for kids and students.
More than 160 tribes are featured in this outstanding new encyclopedia, which presents a comprehensive overview of the history of North America’s Native peoples. From the Apache to the Zuni, readers will learn about each tribe’s history, traditions, and culture, including the impact of European expansion across the land and how tribes live today. Features include maps of ancestral lands; timelines of important dates and events; fact boxes for each tribe; bios of influential American Indians such as Sitting Bull; sidebars on daily life, homes, food, clothing, jewelry, and games; Did You Know facts with photographs; and traditional Native stories. The design is compelling and colorful, packed with full-color photographs.
To help give kids the lay of the land, this reference is arranged by region, and all federally recognized tribes are included. Tribal members representing each region and experts at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution were involved in its creation.
Eagle Drums
Author:
Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson
Genre:
Fantasy/Mythology
Summary:
As his family prepares for winter, a young, skilled hunter must travel up the mountain to collect obsidian for knapping―the same mountain where his two older brothers died.
When he reaches the mountaintop, he is immediately confronted by a powerful eagle god named Savik. Savik gives the boy a choice: follow me or die like your brothers.
What comes next is a harrowing journey to the home of the eagle gods and unexpected lessons on the natural world, the past that shapes us, and the community that binds us.
Eagle Drums by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson is part cultural folklore, part origin myth about the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast, a Native Arctic tradition that is still celebrated in times of bounty among the Iñupiaq. This story is based on the oral tradition of how Iñupiaq people were given the gift of music, song, dance, community, and everlasting connection. Hopson’s full-page illustrations and spot art, rendered in colored pencil, accompany this memorable story.
Sisters of the Neversea
Author:
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Genre:
Fantasy/Retelling
Summary:
Lily and Wendy have been best friends since they became stepsisters. But with their feuding parents planning to spend the summer apart, what will become of their family—and their friendship?
Little do they know that a mysterious boy has been watching them from the oak tree outside their window. A boy who intends to take them away from home for good, to an island of wild animals, Merfolk, Fairies, and kidnapped children, to a sea of merfolk, pirates, and a giant crocodile.
A boy who calls himself Peter Pan.
The Birchbark House
Author:
Louise Erdrich
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
She was named Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop.
Omakayas and her family live on an island in Lake Superior. Though there are growing numbers of white people encroaching on their land, life continues much as it always has. But the satisfying rhythms of their life are shattered when a visitor comes to their lodge one winter night, bringing with him an invisible enemy that will change things forever–but that will eventually lead Omakayas to discover her calling.
By turns moving and humorous, this novel is a breathtaking tour de force by a gifted writer.
The beloved and essential Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich includes The Birchbark House, The Game of Silence, The Porcupine Year, Chickadee, and Makoons.
Peacemaker
Author:
Joseph Bruchac
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
Twelve-year-old Okwaho’s life has suddenly changed. While he and his best friend are out hunting, his friend is kidnapped by men from a neighboring tribal nation, and Okwaho barely escapes. Everyone in his village fears more raids and The Five Nations of the Iroquois have been at war with one another for far too long, and no one can remember what it was like to live in peace.
Okwaho is so angry that he wants to seek revenge for his friend, but before he can retaliate, a visitor with a message of peace comes to him in the woods. The Peacemaker shares his lesson tales—stories that make Okwaho believe that this man can convince the leaders of the five fighting nations to set down their weapons. So many others agree with him. Can all of them come together to form the Iroquois Great League of Peace?
Ancestor Approved
Edited by:
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Genre:
Short Stories
Summary:
Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In a high school gym full of color and song, people dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship and heritage. Young protagonists will meet relatives from faraway, mysterious strangers, and sometimes one another (plus one scrappy rez dog).
They are the heroes of their own stories.
Indian Shoes
Author:
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Genre:
Realistic Fiction
Summary:
What do Indian shoes look like, anyway? Like beautiful beaded moccasins…or hightops with bright orange shoelaces?
Ray Halfmoon prefers hightops, but he gladly trades them for a nice pair of moccasins for his Grampa. After all, it’s Grampa Halfmoon who’s always there to help Ray get in and out of scrapes — like the time they are forced to get creative after a homemade haircut makes Ray’s head look like a lawn-mowing accident.
fatty legs
Author:
Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton,
Genre:
Non-fiction/Memoir
Summary:
Eight-year-old Margaret Pokiak has set her sights on learning to read, even though it means leaving her village in the high Arctic. Faced with unceasing pressure, her father finally agrees to let her make the five-day journey to attend school, but he warns Margaret of the terrors of residential schools.
At school Margaret soon encounters the Raven, a black-cloaked nun with a hooked nose and bony fingers that resemble claws. She immediately dislikes the strong-willed young Margaret. Intending to humiliate her, the heartless Raven gives gray stockings to all the girls — all except Margaret, who gets red ones. In an instant Margaret is the laughingstock of the entire school.
In the face of such cruelty, Margaret refuses to be intimidated and bravely gets rid of the stockings. Although a sympathetic nun stands up for Margaret, in the end it is this brave young girl who gives the Raven a lesson in the power of human dignity.
We Still Belong
Author:
Christine Day
Genre:
Realistic Fiction
Summary:
Wesley is proud of the poem she wrote for Indigenous Peoples’ Day—but the reaction from a teacher makes her wonder if expressing herself is important enough. And due to the specific tribal laws of her family’s Nation, Wesley is unable to enroll in the Upper Skagit tribe and is left feeling “not Native enough.” Through the course of the novel, with the help of her family and friends, she comes to embrace her own place within the Native community.
Buffalo Dreamer
Author:
Violet Duncan
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
Summer and her family always spend relaxed summers in Alberta, Canada, on the reservation where her mom’s family lives. But this year is turning out to be an eye-opening one. First, Summer has begun to have vivid dreams in which she’s running away from one of the many real-life residential schools that tore Native children from their families and tried to erase their Native identities. Not long after that, she learns that unmarked children’s graves have been discovered at the school her grandpa attended as a child. Now more folks are speaking up about their harrowing experiences at these places, including her grandfather. Summer cherishes her heritage and is heartbroken about all her grandfather was forced to give up and miss out on. When the town holds a rally, she’s proud to take part to acknowledge the painful past and speak of her hopes for the future, and anxious to find someone who can fill her in on the source of her unsettling dreams.
rez dogs
Author:
Joseph Bruchac
Genre:
Realistic Fiction/In Verse
Summary:
Malian loves spending time with her grandparents at their home on a Wabanaki reservation—she’s there for a visit when, suddenly, all travel shuts down. There’s a new virus making people sick, and Malian will have to stay with her grandparents for the duration.
Everyone is worried about the pandemic, but Malian knows how to keep her family safe: She protects her grandparents, and they protect her. She doesn’t go out to play with friends, she helps her grandparents use video chat, and she listens to and learns from their stories. And when Malsum, one of the dogs living on the rez, shows up at their door, Malian’s family knows that he’ll protect them too.
The Summer of the Bone Horses
Author:
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
When Eddie’s parents drive from the Black Hills to the Dakota plains to drop him off with Grandpa and Grandma High Elk, Eddie aches all over at the thought of being away from Mom and Dad for the first time.
But quickly, Eddie’s stay on the Rosebud Reservation becomes a summer that he’ll never forget as he spends his days riding horses, fishing, helping Grandma in her garden, and playing with the toy bone horses that his grandfather gave him. When his grandfather is hurt and needs medical attention, Eddie steps up and helps him get the care he needs.
Healer of the Water Monster
Author:
Brian Young
Genre:
Fantasy/Mythology
Summary:
When Nathan goes to visit his grandma, Nali, at her mobile summer home on the Navajo reservation, he knows he’s in for a pretty uneventful summer, with no electricity or cell service. Still, he loves spending time with Nali and with his uncle Jet, though it’s clear when Jet arrives that he brings his problems with him.
One night, while lost in the nearby desert, Nathan finds someone extraordinary: a Holy Being from the Navajo Creation Story—a Water Monster—in need of help.
Now Nathan must summon all his courage to save his new friend. With the help of other Navajo Holy Beings, Nathan is determined to save the Water Monster, and to support Uncle Jet in healing from his own pain.
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