9 Books for Native American Heritage Month

by Nicola Campbell; illustrated by Julie Flett

On an outing in Nicola Valley, British Columbia, a Native American family forages for herbs and mushrooms while the grandmother passes down her language and knowledge to her young grandchildren. 

by Kevin Noble Maillard; illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal

Using brief statements that begin "fry bread is," Maillard, who is a member of the Mekusukey band of the Seminole Nation tribe, creates a powerful meditation on the food as "a cycle of heritage and fortune." 

by Joseph Bruchac; illustrated by Liz Amini-Holmes

As a boy, Chester Nez was taught his native language and culture were useless, but he was later called on to use his Navajo language to help create an unbreakable military code during WWII.

by Cherie Dimaline

In a future world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's indigenous population—and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow—and dreams—means death for the unwilling donors.

by Eric Gansworth

In 1980, life is hard on the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New York, and most of the teenagers feel like they are going nowhere. Carson Mastick dreams of forming a rock band, and Maggi Bokoni longs to create her own conceptual artwork instead of the traditional beadwork that her family sells to tourists—but tensions are rising between the reservation and the surrounding communities.

edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale

#Not Your Princess presents an eclectic collection of poems, essays, interviews, and art that combine to express the experience of being a Native woman.

by Tommy Orange

A multi-generational relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair are woven into the history of a nation and its people.

by Waubeshig Rice

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. 

by Tanya Talaga

Over the span of ten years, seven high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave their reserve because there was no high school there for them to attend. Award-winning journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this northern city that has come to manifest, and struggle with, human rights violations past and present against aboriginal communities.