Native Ways of Knowing Book List Young Adult

Updated September 15, 2025
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
American Indians : stereotypes & realities
Mihesuah, Devon A.
Paper Book
"Mihesuah's work should be required reading for elementary and upper level teachers, college instructors and parents. Let us hope it finds a wide readership in mainstream circles." Joel Monture, Multicultural Review "Professor Mihesuah goes beyond simply providing responses to common stereotypes....
Apple : skin to the core : a memoir in words and pictures
Gansworth, Eric L.
Paper Book
PRINTZ HONOR AWARD NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST A moving memoir-in-verse that chronicles one Native teenager's search for belonging  The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on...
Apple : skin to the core : a memoir in words and pictures
Gansworth, Eric
Paper Book
PRINTZ HONOR AWARD NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST A moving memoir-in-verse that chronicles one Native teenager's search for belonging  The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on...
As long as grass grows : the indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock
Gilio-Whitaker, Dina
Paper Book
The story of Native peoples' resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community's rich history of activism Through the unique lens of "Indigenized environmental justice," Indigenous researcher and...
The birchbark house
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
"[In this] story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, living on an island in Lake Superior around 1847, Louise Erdrich is reversing the narrative perspective used in most children's stories about nineteenth-century Native Americans. Instead of looking out at 'them' as dangers or curiosities, Erdrich,...
The birchbark house
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
For use in schools and libraries only. Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.
The birchbark house
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
"[In this] story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, living on an island in Lake Superior around 1847, Louise Erdrich is reversing the narrative perspective used in most children's stories about nineteenth-century Native Americans. Instead of looking out at 'them' as dangers or curiosities, Erdrich,...
The birchbark house
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
For use in schools and libraries only. Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.
The birchbark house
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
For use in schools and libraries only. Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.
Braiding sweetgrass for young adults : indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Paper Book
I could hand you a braid of sweetgrass as thick and shining as the braid that hung down my grandmother's back. But it is not mine to give, nor yours to take. Wiingaashk belongs to herself. I offer, in her place, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world. As a...
Elatsoe
Little Badger, Darcie
Paper Book
One of TIME Magazine's Top 100 Fantasy Novels of All Time -- Now in Paperback!  A Texas teen comes face-to-face with a cousin's ghost and vows to unmask the murderer. Elatsoe--Ellie for short--lives in an alternate contemporary America shaped by the...
Elatsoe
Little Badger, Darcie
Paper Book
One of TIME Magazine's Top 100 Fantasy Novels of All Time -- Now in Paperback!  A Texas teen comes face-to-face with a cousin's ghost and vows to unmask the murderer. Elatsoe--Ellie for short--lives in an alternate contemporary America shaped by the...
Firekeeper's daughter
Boulley, Angeline
Paper Book
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller! A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick! A Printz Medal AND Morris Award Winner! Soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground.
Firekeeper's daughter
Boulley, Angeline
Paper Book
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller! A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick! A Printz Medal AND Morris Award Winner! Soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground.
Hearts unbroken
Smith, Cynthia Leitich
Paper Book
Winner of an American Indian Youth Literature Award New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Leitich Smith turns to realistic fiction with the thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school -- and first love. ...
Hearts unbroken
Smith, Cynthia Leitich
Paper Book
Winner of an American Indian Youth Literature Award New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Leitich Smith turns to realistic fiction with the thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school -- and first love. ...
If I ever get out of here : a novel with paintings
Gansworth, Eric L.
Paper Book
"A heart-healing, mocs-on-the-ground story of music, family and friendship." -- Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of Tantalize and Rain is Not My Indian Name.Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the...
If I ever get out of here : a novel with paintings
Gansworth, Eric L.
Paper Book
"A heart-healing, mocs-on-the-ground story of music, family and friendship." -- Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of Tantalize and Rain is Not My Indian Name.Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the...
Mankiller : a chief and her people
Mankiller, Wilma
Paper Book
In this spiritual, moving autobiography, Wilma Mankiller, former Chief of the Cherokee Nation and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, tells of her own history while also honoring and recounting the history of the Cherokees. Mankiller's life unfolds against the backdrop of the dawning...
The painted drum : a novel
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
"Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see--to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves--and...
The painted drum : a novel
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
"Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see--to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves--and...
The painted drum : a novel
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
"Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see--to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves--and...
The painted drum : a novel
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
"Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see--to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves--and...
The round house
Erdrich, Louise.
Paper Book
One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels The Round House won the National Book Award for fiction. One of the most revered novelists of our time--a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life--Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize...
The round house : a novel
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels The Round House won the National Book Award for fiction. One of the most revered novelists of our time--a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life--Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize...
The sentence a novel
Erdrich, Louise
CD
In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors. Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the...
The sentence
Erdrich, Louise
CD
In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors. Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the...
Sky Wolf's Call: The Gift of Indigenous Knowledge
Yellowhorn, Eldon
Paper Book
From healing to astronomy to our connection to the natural world, the lessons from Indigenous knowledge inform our learning and practices today. How do knowledge systems get passed down over generations? Through the knowledge inherited from their Elders and ancestors, Indigenous Peoples...
The stone child
Robertson, David
Paper Book
After discovering a near-lifeless Eli at the base of the Great Tree, Morgan knows she doesn't have much time to save him. And it will mean asking for help - from friends old and new. Racing against the clock, and with Arik and Emily at her side, Morgan sets off to follow the trail away from the...
There there a novel
Orange, Tommy
CD
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...
There there a novel
Orange, Tommy
CD
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...
There there a novel
Orange, Tommy
CD
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...
There there a novel
Orange, Tommy
CD
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...
There there a novel
Orange, Tommy
CD
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...
Thunderous
Smoker, M. L.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2023 HIGH PLAINS BOOK AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S MIDDLE GRADE!
When the light of the world was subdued, our songs came through : a Norton anthology of Native nations poetry
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into one momentous volume. This landmark anthology celebrates the indigenous peoples of North America, the first poets of this country, whose literary traditions stretch back...
American Indians : stereotypes & realities
Mihesuah, Devon A.
Paper Book
"Mihesuah's work should be required reading for elementary and upper level teachers, college instructors and parents. Let us hope it finds a wide readership in mainstream circles." Joel Monture, Multicultural Review "Professor Mihesuah goes beyond simply providing responses to common stereotypes....

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.