Ancona, George (Maya), Powwow. 1993, color photos by the author.

In Powwow, Ancona takes the reader to Crow Agency, Montana, to the Crow Fair, the largest powwow held in the U.S. Ancona’s photographs are a brilliant kaleidoscope of color and movement, and his text simply describes the “modern tradition” of regalia, drums, dance styles, contests, giveaways, honoring—the parts of the intertribal coming together that is called “powwow.”
pb 10.00

Anglesey, Zoe (Chicana), ¡Word Up! Hope for Youth Poetry from El Centro de la Raza. 1992.

As Father Ernesto Cardenal, the great Nicaraguan poet and teacher and inspiration for this book says, “I think that everyone, being human, is a poet, like all birds sing.” The children of the Hope for Youth Poetry Workshop demonstrate that poetry is also a way of building community and generating power. These poems speak to us and our children, and give us hope for the future.
pb 13.00

Awiakta, Marilou (Cherokee), Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery. 2006, color illustrations by Beverly Bringle (Choctaw).

Based on a real event that took place in 1833, Rising Fawn is the profoundly affecting story of a Choctaw child, secure in the peace of a loving family, whose whole world, in an instant, is destroyed. In the light of her own fire, Rising Fawn sees and understands a way to live in this new world. Her story—with variations—was repeated thousands of times, and Awiakta has set it down with honesty and beauty. Bringle’s full-color paintings and Awiakta’s thoughtful discussion questions will thoroughly engage young readers.
pb 15.00

Benton-Banai, Edward (Ojibwe), The Mishomis Book. 1988, b/w illustrations by Joe Liles (Ojibwe).

Mishomis begins with the Creatioin Story, and tells how Original Man came to be on Earth, how he learned his name, how he found his grandmother, how he searched the Earth for his mother and father, and how, as Waynaboozhoo, he became a hero and a teacher for the Ojibwe People. As a child must be guided to grow in understanding, so does Mishomis take the reader from the simplest beginnings to the complexity of meaning of the Midewiwin and Sweat Lodge ceremonies. Written at a level that children can understand, this is a deeply-moving spiritual and historical odyssey not “just” for children.
pb 24.00

One More Story: Contemporary Seneca Tales of the Supernatural. 1991, b/w illustrations by Beth Clark (Seneca).

“The old folks always had time to tell us things,” says Bowen, “and on hot or chilly nights, they told us ghost stories.” Here, a skeleton yells over the houses that were going to have boys killed in the next war, a little girl is saved from a flesh eater, hunters’ bullets explode in front of a giant deer, the devil comes to play cards, a “peeker” receives his comeuppance from a large gray cat, a woman and little girl are reunited in death, and an orphan girl’s devotion is tested by two old people who may not be what they seem. For children who love to turn the lights out and be scared in a safe place, One More Story is perfect.
pb 13.00

The Arrow Over the Door. 1998, b/w illustrations by James Watling.

Told in alternating viewpoints of two young men—Stands Straight, an Abenaki, and Samuel Russell, a Quaker—Arrow Over the Door is based on an actual incident that took place between the Abenaki and the Quakers during the time of the American Revolutionary War. Joe Bruchac is a gifted writer, and one of the things he does very well is breathe life into historical events. Stands Straight and Samuel Russell are real people, and the story will remind young readers that “the way of peace…can be walked by all human beings.” 
pb 5.00

Children of the Longhouse. 1996.

So much fiction available to young people focuses on the cataclysmic relationship between the Indians and non-Indians that it’s easy for some to forget that people have lived in, and called this place “home,” for millennia. In this coming-of-age story, the children of the longhouse are Ohkwa’ri and Itsi:tsia, 11-year-old twins, brother and sister, living in a Mohawk town in the traditional homelands of what is now eastern New York State, in 1491. Reflecting the balance between male and female roles in Iroquois society, the book’s chapters alternate between the events and perspectives of Ohkwa’ri and Itsi:tsia, who very definitely see things differently. Bruchac seamlessly incorporates an impressive amount of information about pre-contact Mohawk culture, society, and beliefs, and tells a good story as well.
pb 6.00

Geronimo. 2006.

As narrated by Geronimo’s adopted grandson, Little Foot, this fast-moving story is rich with cultural and historical markers and a litany of broken promises. As Little Foot observes, “Lies from the mouths of the White Eyes seemed as certain as the sunrise each morning in the east. Even when they wrote their promises down on paper, they still did not keep them. Paper lies are even easier to burn.” Chronicling the captivity years from 1886 to 1894, each short chapter begins with a historical third-person record that offers a counterpoint to Little Foot’s narrative and grounds it in the history of the times. Through Little Foot, middle readers will come to know the great spiritual leader as a man who loved his wives and many children, had an infectious sense of humor, and was an astute businessman besides. Geronimo is a story of resistance and survival, courage and sacrifice, and, above all, the fight to maintain land, culture and community. Told from the perspective of the people themselves, Bruchac’s work is an antidote to the many toxic volumes that portray Geronimo and his people as savages.
hc 17.00

The Heart of a Chief. 1998.

This beautifully written story deals with some of the many issues confronting Native young people today, on and off the reservation: Indian “mascots,” leadership, and alcohol abuse. This may be the only story for this age group that realistically portrays a loving extended Indian family trying to deal with alcoholism. For this one thing alone, it is worth the price of the book.
pb 6.00

Skeleton Man. 2001, b/w illustrations by Sally Wern Comport.

Told from the present-tense perspective of a contemporary youngster whose father is Mohawk, this terrifying young-adult novel is rooted in a traditional story told among the Algonquian and Haudenosaunee peoples of the Northeast. In the oral story, a cannibal ogre hides its face from the child it has stolen to fatten up. Here, Molly—with her understanding of the story, trust in her dreams, and the help of family and community—figures out how to destroy Skeleton Man and rescue her parents. Young readers will not be able to put this one down.
hc 17.00, pb 5.00

The Return of Skeleton Man. 2006, b/w illustrations by Sally Wern Comport.

Molly, the young woman warrior who had already once fought and conquered the Skeleton Man, is suffering. It’s not “just” traumatic stress syndrome, it’s the knowledge that the monster is not really dead, and that he’s waiting to strike again. With that knowledge, strengthened by the ancient stories her father has taught her, a hotel housekeeper who is not really what she seems, a spirit Rabbit who still appears in her dreams, and her willingness to cry “help” into the night, she must once again go into battle. The end of the confrontation, in which Molly in her commandeered bulldozer fights Skeleton Man in his all-terrain vehicle, is at once predictable and terrifying. Middle readers will love it.
hc 16.00

The Winter People. 2002.

The Winter People takes place in 1759, towards the end of the period that became known as the French and Indian Wars. In a targeted raid, the British soldiers led by Major Robert Rogers and called “Rogers Rangers” kill a number of people and burn down most of the village. It is in this setting that a 14-year-old soon-to-be warrior named Saxso sets out to rescue his mother and sisters, taken captive by Rogers Rangers. Saxso’s strength and courage comes not from imagining himself a hero so much as from relying on lessons learned from his elders, and the knowledge of his responsibility to the community. He knows who he is and what he has to do. What’s remarkable about The Winter People is that it draws on the oral histories of the descendants of the survivors of Rogers Raid to reconstruct through their eyes what really happened and how the community survived.
hc 19.00, pb 6.00

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki) and Shonto Begay (Dinè), Navajo Long Walk: The Tragic Story of a Proud People’s Forced March from their Homeland. 2001, color paintings by Shanto Begay (Diné).

There is no word in English that describes the Diné word, hozho. Some say “beauty,” some say “harmony” or “balance,” but it is much more than all of those words. Hozho is and always has been the guiding force of the people of Dinétah, and it is this thing that was almost completely destroyed—along with homes, crops, orchards, and animals—by what became known as the Long Walk. Joe Bruchac’s text tells the story of Kit Carson’s army raid and the forced march from Canyon de Chelly to the desolate reservation known as Bosque Redondo. But it is Shonto Begay’s luminous paintings—and his captions—that speak the heart of the Dinè people and inform the reader as words alone never could. This is a beautiful book about an unspeakable tragedy.
hc 19.00

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki) and James Bruchac (Abenaki), When the Chenoo Howls: Native American Tales of Terror. 1998, b/w illustrations by William Sauts Netamuxwe Bock (Lenni Lenape).

Based on traditional stories from the Northeast Woodlands, these 12 terrifying tales—“from the very distant past to very recent times”—are of ordinary and extraordinary heroes battling hideous monsters. In many of them, having a good heart and a clear mind and “standing up against their own fears” are what enables them to defeat their terrible foes. There are cautionary tales too, demonstrating what can happen to children who don’t heed the advice they’re given. Of course, in these stories, the monsters win. Bock’s pen-and-ink sketches give just enough detail; they are perfect and perfectly horrifying. When the Chenoo Howls will enthrall reluctant young readers, as well as children who love being scared in a safe place.
pb 11.00

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), and Gayle Ross (Cherokee), The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America. (1994), 2006.

Here, Bruchac and Ross tell 16 traditional stories that celebrate the passage from girlhood to womanhood and, as Ross says in the introduction, “to honor the generations of grandmothers who have gone before us and to reach the daughters and granddaughters who will come after.” In four stories from four Indian nations from four geographical regions of North America, courageous and resourceful young women outwit monsters and avoid bad marriages, but also suffer the consequences of their actions and join their husbands in the world of the spirits. Together, these stories have beauty and power, and are laugh-out-loud funny, tragic and frightening as well.
pb 10.00

Bruchac, Margaret (Abenaki), Malian’s Song. 2005, color illustrations by William Maughan.

Malian’s Song is an account of the October 4, 1759, attack on the village of Odanack by Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers. Because the people were warned by one of Rogers’ Mohican scouts, 32 of the villagers were killed, rather than the 200 later claimed by Rogers, but their homes were burned, and their stores of corn pillaged. This story has existed in the living traditions of Abenaki people for nearly 250 years, and Bruchac sets down this tragic event carefully and with great feeling. Young readers will see the loss and pain and sorrow, and they will also see how the people have continued, and do so still. Maughn’s illustrations are lovely.
hc 17.00

Buffalo Bird Woman (Hidatsa), as told to Gilbert L. Wilson, Waheenee: An Indian Girl’s Story. (1921), 1981, b/w illustrations by Frederick Wilson.

Waheenee-wea (Buffalo Bird Woman) was born in 1839, two years after the devastating smallpox epidemic that wiped out most of the Mandan and about half of the Hidatsa people. The survivors consolidated and moved north, where they founded Like-a-Fishook Village. Waheenee’s great-grandmother White Corn and grandmother Turtle told her many stories of these times. In the early 1900s, Waheenee herself told many stories to the anthropologist Wilson. Here, she tells of emulating her mothers and grandmothers, learning her growing responsibilities and teaching a puppy his, farming and harvesting and preparing vast amounts of food, moving camp, welcoming visitors, fooling around with girlfriends, teenage crushes and poking fun at clan relations, and listening to stories that teach why certain behaviors are to be cultivated or avoided. In Waheenee’s stories, young readers will get a warm narrative of the day-to-day lives of the Hidatsa people and their Mandan relatives.
pb 13.00

Carlson, Keith Thor, and Albert “Sonny” McHalsie (Stó:lo), I am Stó:lo! Katherine explores her heritage. 1998, color photos.

As a school project about cultural heritage is planned, fourth-grader Katherine McHalsie is not happy when another student voices his thoughts about Native peoples based on a cowboy-and-Indian movie he saw on TV. So Katherine sets out to research her heritage. In conversations and hands-on experiences with her large extended family and Stó:lo (Coast Salish) elders, Katherine learns about the importance of story, community, ceremony, history, and her ancestors. And she learns that everything—the trees, the fish, the land—is alive, everything has spirit, everything has volition, everything has purpose. When she returns to school ready to present her report, Katherine is more confident about what she has learned and what she has yet to learn. The engaging narrative is enhanced by lovely photos of Katharine and her extended family. Maps, archival photos, artwork, a glossary, and a key to the Stó:lo writing system all work together to complement the story and set it in time and place.
hc 36.00

For a full review click HERE.

Carlson, Vada (Dinè), and Gary Witherspoon (Dinè), Black Mountain Boy: A Story of the Boyhood of John Honie. 1993, b/w illustrations by Andy Tsinajinnie (Dinè).

Diné elder and healer John Honie grew up in the beauty, abundance and seclusion of Black Mountain, at a time when the people had large numbers of sheep and goats, and every able-bodied family member was expected to work with them. These six stories about events in Honie’s early life—learning to herd sheep from his older sister, listening to stories from his mother’s brother, learning about what constitutes a family, learning how to protect his horse, and finally, at age sixteen, becoming a man—were prepared by Rough Rock Demonstration School primarily for Diné young people, and will resonate with young readers everywhere. Black Mountian Boy is an antidote to Scott O’Dell’s atrocious Sing Down the Moon.
pb 15.00

Sweetgrass Basket. 2005.

Sweetgrass Basket, told in the alternating voices of two young Mohawk sisters attending the now-notorious Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the early 1900s, is a wrenchingly beautiful story of two sisters trying to keep themselves together in an atmosphere that fosters only hate and shame. Amidst all the abuse, the children resist the value system being foisted on them, sometimes with great good humor. “I must say,” the older sister Mattie says to Sarah about the hated Mrs. Dwyer, “‘that I hope she steps in a hole and is swallowed by the earth.’ Suddenly Sarah’s eyes brighten and a smile spreads across her face. ‘Mattie, how dreadful,’ she says in mock horror. ‘What a terrible thing to do to Mother Earth.’” The ending is a surprise that’s not really a surprise. Children died at Carlisle, in front of cold, hard people who didn’t give a damn.
hc 17.00

Who Will Tell My Brother? 2002.

Unlike his older brother, Evan Hill was born looking like his white mother rather than his Mohawk father. In waging a struggle against his high school’s Indian mascot, Evan follows in his brother’s footsteps, taking on a task that is “a matter of honor, a matter of respect.” Journal entries that are quiet, moving, and very readable express Evan’s deep shame and great determination as he tries to get the students, teachers, principal, and school board to listen to him. “I simply have no choice. I have no choice,” he says. When he addresses the school board in his “monthly plea for justice,” they condescendingly explain to him that “racism is a matter of opinion.” In the face of escalating name-calling, threats and even physical attacks by some of the students, Evan stands strong. He knows what he has to do.
pb 6.00

Culleton, Beatrice (Métis), Spirit of the White Bison. 1985, b/w illustrations by Robert Kakaygeesick, Jr. (Ojibwe).

Through the eyes of a young white buffalo living her life close to the end of the time of the great herds, Spirit of the White Bison is a heart-breaking and beautifully written short novel about the decimation of the buffalo at the hands of a new kind of hunter: one who does not hunt for food, but only for the slaughter. “It was not a quiet, accidental extermination,” Culleton writes. “The horror was that the killings were deliberate, planned, military actions. Destroy the livelihood of the Indians and win a war.”
pb 6.00

Dunn, Anne M. (Ojibwe), When Beaver Was Very Great: Stories to Live By. 1995, b/w illustrations by Sharon L. White (Ojibwe).

When Beaver Was Very Great contains variations of traditional short stories that have been told and retold for generations. Most of the characters in these stories are animals common to the Ojibwe home areas of the Great Lakes. Even though these stories are short in length, don’t be tempted to rush through them; there’s a lot on which to reflect. Brimming with kindness and insight, strength and beauty, Anne’s traditional stories, modern stories, and poems are truly “stories to live by.”
pb 14.00

From the Deep Woods to Civilization. (1916), 1977 b/w illustrations.

This second part of his autobiography begins with Ohiyesa’s abrupt departure from traditional life at the age of 15 to join his father in the “civilized” world. Renamed Charles Alexander Eastman, he attended Dartmouth, became a physician, and moved to Pine Ridge Agency to begin his practice. Here, he met and married Elaine Goodale, a white woman who was supervisor of Indian Schools. Eastman, who witnessed the aftermath of the massacre at Wounded Knee, spent much of his life serving as a “translator” for Native people to whites.
pb 15.00

The Birchbark House. 1999, b/w illustrations by the author.

“She was named Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop. She grew into a nimble young girl of seven winters, a thoughtful girl with shining brown eyes, and a wide grin, only missing her two front teeth. She touched her upper lip. She still wasn’t used to those teeth gone, and was impatient for her new, grown-up teeth to complete her smile.” It is 1847, and Omakayas is living with her extended family on the land called the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. Omakayas’ year is a time of growth, and joy, of lessons learned—some hard—and of tragedy and loss and joy and healing, and the singular importance of place and family in a child’s life: “Omakayas rose on her elbow and threw back her head, closed her eyes and smiled as the white-throated sparrow sank again and again through the air like a shining needle, and sewed up her broken heart.”
pb 7.00

Gaikesheyongai, Sally (Ojibwe), The Seven Fires: An Ojibway Prophecy. 1994, color illustrations by Polly Keeshig-Tobias.

In a touching and straightforward way, Gaikesheyongai tell of each of the seven fires, how she interprets each prophecy, and how each relates to Ojibwe life (and the life of all of us) today. Young readers will feel Gaikesheyongai’s presence as she shares a heartfelt, inspiring and philosophical discussion. As she explains the prophecies in simple, personal language that young people can easily identify with, they will come away with a lot to think about. The discussion of each fire is accompanied by a full-page watercolor-and-ink drawing, awesome in its simplicity and honesty. Both discussions and pictures will have children thinking very deeply about what was, what could have been, what has changed—and what is yet possible. This is a treasure of a book.
pb 6.00

Grace, Catherine O’Neill, and Marge Bruchac (Abenaki), 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving. 2001, color photos by Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson.

Produced in collaboration with the Wampanoag Indian Program at Plimoth Plantation, 1621 weighs Wampanoag oral traditions and English colonial written records against the popular myth of “brave settlers inviting wild Indians over for turkey dinner.” Stunning photographs, accompanied by simple, thoughtful text, are designed to walk the young reader into the dual perspectives of Native peoples and English colonists in Patuxet/Plymouth. The text, written for a young audience but not solely for children, also offers insights into the relationship of the Wampanoag people to their traditional homelands, and survival into the present. As well, 1621 addresses the harsh reality of the subsequent colonial history. Along with Giving Thanks and Thanksgiving: A Native Perspective, 1621 is an excellent tool for deconstructing the myths of “The First Thanksgiving.”
hc 18.00, pb 8.00

Harper, Maddie (Ojibwe), “Mush-hole”: Memories of a Residential School. 1993, color illustrations by Carlos Freire.

When Maddie Harper was seven years old, she found herself in the Brantford School in Ontario with about 200 other little girls who called it “mush-hole” because mush was their daily fare. Here, Harper tells of her eight years at the school, the cultural degradation she was forced to endure, her escape at age 15, her alienation from her community, her descent into alcoholism and finally, her return to traditional ways and recovery. This is a very deep “picture book” with amazing illustrations that will leave young readers with a lot to think and talk about.
pb 6.00

Hubbard, Jim, ed., Shooting Back from the Reservation. 1994, b/w photos.

In the Shooting Back project, children from reservations in Arizona, Minnesota, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wisconsin were given cameras, some film, and a short course in photography. The intent was to “provide a window of opportunity by teaching them photography so they can interpret their visions of the world.” And that’s just what they did. Here, the children give back to the reader a camera’s-eye view of their lives. Pictures and writing by the young always reveal so much more perception and understanding than the adult world tends to expect of them. This book is no exception.
pb 17.00

Hungry Wolf, Beverly (Blackfoot), Daughters of the Buffalo Women: Maintaining the Tribal Faith. 1996, b/w photos and illustrations.

In this companion to her earlier The Ways of My Grandmothers are stories from Beverly Hungry Wolf’s mother, Ruth Little Bear, and the other elder women who grew up in the early 1900s. Here are memories of reservation life, boarding schools and hardscrabble existence; along with observations of the revival of tribal traditions by the younger generation, always with the guidance of the elders. These are real stories, by real people. It makes all the difference.
pb 15.00

Indian Teacher and Educational Personnel Program, Humboldt State University, Northwest Indigenous Gold Rush History: The Indian Survivors of California’s Holocaust. 1998, b/w photos.

Children’s literature about the “Gold Rush” and textbooks paint the “forty-niners” as courageous pioneers in pursuit of gold and the “Gold Rush” as an exciting, thrilling, adventurous time in the history of California. From an Indian perspective, this time was one of invasion, famine, murder, even massacre. This book, put together by a group of Indian students at Humboldt State University, deals with this era honestly and from a fully Indian perspective, and, in the hands of an innovative teacher, can be used with children.
pb 7.50