Native American Heritage

November is National Native American Heritage Month and in honor of this nation's first people and their rich history, we are featuring books by Indigenous authors who continue the tradition of storytelling to explore Native identity, challenge stereotypes and historical fallacies, and to connect the past with the present.

Updated December 5, 2023
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Braiding sweetgrass : indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller A Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub A Book Riot "Favorite Summer Read of 2020" A Food Tank Fall...
Moon of the crusted snow : a novel
Rice, Waubgeshig
Audiobook
A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community...
The sentence : a novel
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
"Dazzling. . . . A hard-won love letter to readers and to booksellers, as well as a compelling story about how we cope with pain and fear, injustice and illness. One good way is to press a beloved book into another's hands. Read The Sentence and then do just that."--USA Today, Four Stars ...
Poet warrior : a memoir
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of...
An American sunrise : poems
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family's lands and opens a dialogue with history. In An American Sunrise, Harjo...
Shutter
Emerson, Ramona
Paper Book
Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases - she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward clues other investigators overlook. Rita's...
Carry : a memoir of survival on stolen land
Jensen, Toni
Ebook
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A powerful, poetic memoir about what it means to exist as an Indigenous woman in America, told in snapshots of the author's encounters with gun violence. Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize * Goop Book Club Pick *...
House made of dawn
Momaday, N. Scott
Paper Book
The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a stranger in his native land "Both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature. . . . A book everyone should read for the joy and emotion of the language it contains." - The Paris Review<...
Where the dead sit talking
Hobson, Brandon
Paper Book
With his single mother in jail, Sequoyah, a 15-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care with the Troutt family. Literally and figuratively scarred by his unstable upbringing, Sequoyah has spent years mostly keeping to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface - that is,...
Crazy brave : a memoir
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by...
There there
Orange, Tommy
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. A contemporary classic, this...
My heart is a chainsaw
Jones, Stephen Graham
Paper Book
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest novel from the Jordan...
Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, "one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New York...
Elatsoe
Little Badger, Darcie
Ebook
A National Indie Bestseller TIME's Best 100 Fantasy Books of All Time An NPR Best Book of 2020 A Booklist's Top 10 First Novel for Youth A BookPage Best Book of 2020 A CPL "Best of the Best" Book A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2020 A Buzzfeed Best YA SFF...

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