How to Approach
|
|
We Are Water ProtectorsSuggested Age Range: 3–6 Years Old
|
We Are Water Protectors—was written in response to Indigenous-led environmental protests. It tells the story of a young Ojibwe girl and her people as they take on the “black snake” of an oil pipeline threatening their way of life, and rally to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption.
Carol Lindstrom is the author of The New York Times bestselliing and Caldecott Award-winning We Are Water Protectors. She is Anishinabe/Métis and is a proud member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe Indians. Illustrator Michaela Goade, a member of the Tlingit and Haida tribes, is known for her work on picture books about Indigenous people. She is the first Indigenous artist to receive the Caldecott Medal for her illustrations in the We Are Water Protectors.
|
Fry Bread: A Native American Family StorySuggested Age Range: 3–6 Years Old
|
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story—told in verse—is about a unifying cultural food: something universal across tribes, but also something that everyone can eat. “Fry bread is food. It is warm and delicious, piled high on a plate. Fry bread is time. It brings families together for meals and new memories…”
Kevin Maillard is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. He is the debut author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, a picture book illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, which won the Sibert Medal and the American Indian Youth Literature Award. Juana Martinez-Neal is the recipient of the 2019 Caldecott Honor for Alma and How She Got Her Name, her debut picture as author-illustrator. She is also a New York Times bestselling illustrator recipient of the 20202 Robert F. Silbert Medal for Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story.
|
Healer of the Water MonsterSuggested Age Range: 8–12 Years Old
|
Healer of the Water Monster captures an epic hero's journey of 11-year-old Nathan when he visits his grandma, Nali, at her mobile home on the Navajo reservation. With no electricity or cell service, Nathan expected a pretty uneventful summer. Wandering into the desert, he encounters Pond, an ailing water monster. With the help of a communication stone, he enters a world of Navajo cosmology to help save Pond.
Author and filmmaker Brian Young is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. Young earned his BA in Film Studies at Yale University and his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University. His powerful debut novel, Healer of the Water Monster, won the 2022 American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Middle Grade Book.
|
Firekeeper's DaughterSuggested Age Range: 14 Years Old and Above
|
Firekeeper's Daughter is a thriller told through the eyes of 18-year-old Daunis—a biracial, unenrolled member of the Ojibwe tribe. With crystal meth abuse on the rise in her community, Daunis uses her knowledge of science and native medicine to go undercover as a confidential informant with the FBI. What she uncovers makes her question everything she's ever known.
Angeline Boulley’s authentic depictions of the complexities of Native communities—and the traumas and strengths of Native women, specifically—make this book a standout for YA readers. Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault St. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Firekeeper's Daughter, her debut novel, was an instant #1 New York Times Bestseller.
|
The Marrow ThievesSuggested Age Range: 14 Years Old and Above
|
The Marrow Thieves—Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The Indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden—but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
Cherie Dimaline is a writer from the Feorgian Bay Métis Nation, a part of Nétis Nation of Ontario. She has written a variety of award-winning novels and other acclaimed stories and articles. She is most noted for her 2017 Science Fiction/Dystopian Fiction YA novel The Marrow Thieves, which explores the continued colonial exploitation of Indigenous people.
|
From Our Local Historian:
|
|
