Indigenous Voices for Adults

To honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Happy Valley librarians have selected the following books that might serve as an introduction to a rich and diverse heritage of fiction, nonfiction, history, poetry, memoir, and more by and about Indigenous peoples in the United States.

Updated September 25, 2023
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Braiding sweetgrass
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member...
NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ
TALTY, MORGAN
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection New England Book Award Winner, Fiction A Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction, The Story Prize, B&N Discover Book Prize A New York...
Calling for a blanket dance : a novel
Hokeah, Oscar
"STUNNING." --Susan Power, author of The Grass DancerA moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in fiction. Oscar Hokeah's electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family-...
The antelope wife : a novel
Erdrich, Louise.
"A fiercely imagined tale of love and loss, a story that manages to transform tragedy into comic redemption, sorrow into heroic survival." --New York Times "[A] beguiling family saga....A captivating jigsaw puzzle of longing and loss whose pieces form an unforgettable image of...
BAD CREE
JOHNS, JESSICA
In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home. "A mystery and a horror story about...
Canyon dreams : a basketball season on the Navajo Nation
Powell, Michael
The moving story of a Navajo high school basketball team, its members struggling with the everyday challenges of high school, adolescence, and family, and the great and unique obstacles facing Native Americans living on reservations.   Deep in the heart of northern Arizona,...
The journey of Crazy Horse : a Lakota history
Marshall, Joseph
Most of the world remembers Crazy Horse as a peerless warrior who brought the U.S. Army to its knees at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But to his fellow Lakota Indians, he was a dutiful son and humble fighting man who—with valor, spirit, respect, and unparalleled leadership—fought for his people’s...
This is paradise : stories
Kahakauwila, Kristiana.
Elegant, brutal, and profound-this magnificent debut captures the grit and glory of modern Hawai'i with breathtaking force and accuracy. In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i,...
The removed : a novel
Hobson, Brandon
"A haunted work, full of voices old and new. It is about a family's reckoning with loss and injustice, and it is about a people trying for the same. The journey of this family's way home is full--in equal measure--of melancholy and love." --Tommy Orange, author of There There ...
Empire of wild : a novel
Dimaline, Cherie
"Deftly written, gripping and informative. Empire of Wild is a rip-roaring read!"--Margaret Atwood, From Instagram "Empire of Wild is doing everything I love in a contemporary novel and more. It is tough, funny, beautiful, honest and propulsive--all the while telling a...
Apple : skin to the core : a memoir in words and pictures
Gansworth, Eric L.
Winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award Printz Honor Winner National Book Award Longlist TIME 10 Best YA and Children's Books of the Year NPR Best of the Year Shelf Awareness Best of the Year Publishers Weekly Big Indie Books of...
Sabrina & Corina : stories
Fajardo-Anstine, Kali
Kali Fajardo-Anstine's magnetic story collection breathes life into her Indigenous Latina characters and the land they inhabit. Set against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado-a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite-these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives- with...
Rediscovery of America : native peoples and the unmaking of U. S. history
Blackhawk, Ned
National Bestseller   Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History * Winner of 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction   Named...
There there : a novel
Orange, Tommy
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...
WOMAN OF LIGHT
FAJARDO-ANSTINE, KALI
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A "dazzling, cinematic, intimate, lyrical" (Roxane Gay) epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina  ...
Gathering moss : a natural and cultural history of mosses
Kimmerer, Robin Wall.
Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.Robin Wall...
The things she's seen
Kwaymullina, Ambelin
This brilliantly written thriller explores the lives--and deaths--of two girls, and what they will do to win justice. Sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year! Nothing's been the same for Beth Teller since the day she died. Her dad is drowning in...
DON'T FEAR THE REAPER
JONES, STEPHEN GRAHAM
A Locus Award Finalist December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from...
Too much lip : a novel
Lucashenko, Melissa
A gritty and darkly hilarious novel quaking with life--winner of Australia's Miles Franklin Award--that follows a queer, First Nations Australian woman as she returns home to face her family and protect the land of their ancestors. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent her adulthood...
Dog flowers : a memoir
Geller, Danielle
A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother's life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family's troubled history.   "A candid and achingly fractured memoir of [Geller's] mother, her family, her Navajo heritage and her own...
A history of my brief body
Belcourt, Billy-Ray
Lambda Literary Award, Finalist / "A Best Book of 2020" --Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, CBC, Globe and Mail, Largehearted Boy. "Stunning... Happiness, this beautiful book says, is the ultimate act of resistance." --Michelle Hart, O, The Oprah Magazine The youngest ever winner of...
The heartbeat of Wounded Knee : life in Native America
Treuer, David
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a story of Native American resilience and reinvention, adapted for young adults from the adult nonfiction book of the same name. Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the...

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