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Her Salish name is Seepeetza, but at the Indian residential school in British Columbia, she is called Martha. She hates her white name, but she is beaten if she talks “Indian.” Her long hair is cut off. At the same time, the other students pick on her because she has green eyes and looks whiteFirst published in 1992 in Canada, where it won the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Book Prize, this autobiographical novel is written in the form of Seepeetza’s diary in her sixth-grade year in the 1950s. — Booklist

My Name Is Seepeetza

Shirley Sterling

Age Level:

9-12

In the 1930s, two young brothers are sent to a government-run Indian residential school where they are forbidden to speak their native tongue and are taught to abandon their Indian ways. In this award-winning book, Judith Lowry’s illustrations are inspired by the stories she heard from her father and uncle about their journey home one summer, escaping the school as stowaways atop a train.

Home to Medicine Mountain

Chiori Santiago

Illustrator:

Judith Lowry

Age Level:

6-9

In this evocative glimpse into the past, a narrator recalls the blue enamel stove of her childhood home in the mountains of North Dakota ; The stove provides light and comfort against night fears and casts shadows on the wall that turn into pictures of the plains long ago, thick with grazing buffaloThis is a peaceful story of imagination, memories, and the ties among generations. — School Library Journal

The Range Eternal

Louise Erdrich

Age Level:

6-9

In his own words, paintings, and family photographs, acclaimed Native American artist George Littlechild takes young readers back in time to the first meeting between his Plains Cree ancestors and the first European settlers in North America. Through inspiring autobiographical stories accompanied by vivid, dramatic paintings, he recounts the history of his people and their relationship to the land, relating their struggles and triumphs with sensitivity, irony, and humor. Jane Addams Picture Book Award.

This Land Is My Land

George Littlechild

Age Level:

9-12

The People Shall Continue

Simon J. Ortiz

Illustrator:

Sharol Graves

Age Level:

9-12

Young Malian lives contentedly in an Abenaki village near Montreal in the mid-eighteenth century. One night, Malian’s life changes abruptly when her father carries her off to the woods and her village is attacked. Malian’s story, based on the true story of “Rogers’s Raid” in 1759 and passed down through Abenaki oral tradition, reveals that many Abenaki people survived the attack that destroyed their village, in direct contrast to Rogers’ journal accounts. (Vermont Folklife Center Children’s Book Series)

Malian’s Song

Margaret E. Bruchac

Illustrator:

William Maughan

Age Level:

6-9

Dramatic, quiet, and warming, this is a story of friendship across cultures in 1800s Mississippi. While searching for blackberries, Martha Tom, a young Choctaw, breaks her village’s rules against crossing the Bok Chitto. She meets and becomes friends with the slaves on the plantation on the other side of the river and later helps a family escape across it to freedom when they hear that the mother is to be sold. Tingle is a performing storyteller, and his text has the rhythm and grace of that oral tradition.

Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship & Freedom

Tim Tingle

Illustrator:

Jeanne Rorex Bridges

Age Level:

6-9

Genre:

Historical Fiction

Product Description: Coyote rules her world, until a funny-looking stranger named Columbus (looking for humans to sell in Spain) changes her plans. Thomas King uses a bag of literary tricks to shatter the stereotypes surrounding Columbus’s voyages, inviting children to laugh at the crazy antics of Coyote, who unwittingly allows Columbus to engineer the downfall of his human friends.

A Coyote Columbus Story

Thomas King

Illustrator:

William Kent Monkman

Age Level:

6-9

On a fresh spring day, young Yetsa, her mother and her grandmother gather to prepare the sheep fleeces piled in Grandma’s yard. As they clean, wash and dry the fleece, laughter and hard work connect the three generations. Through Yetsa’s experience of each task, the reader joins this family in an old but vibrant tradition: the creation of Cowichan sweaters by Coast Salish knitters.

Yetsa’s Sweater

Sylvia Olsen

Age Level:

6-9

Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness into Light

Tim Tingle

Illustrator:

Karen Clarkson

Age Level:

6-9

Genre:

Biography, Nonfiction

Living in a lakeside community of “cellar holes, trailers, and old winterized cottages,” a girl of Native American and French descent loves her home, but feels demeaned when classmates call her a lake rat. She confides in Grampa, who listens, questions, and reminds her of a legend concerning Muskrat. A dream and a symbolic dive into the lake help the girl fully accept where she’s from and who she is. — Booklist

Muskrat Will Be Swimming

Cheryl Savageau

Illustrator:

Robert Hynes

Age Level:

6-9

A young Ojibwe boy and his grandfather set out in a birchbark canoe early one spring morning to discover the peaceful beauty of the lake, climb a rocky cliff, and venture into the woods. Under the patient and gentle guidance of his grandfather, the boy gradually comes to respect the ways of nature and to understand his own place in the world.

Morning on the Lake

Jan Bourdeau Waboose

Illustrator:

Karen Reczuch

Age Level:

6-9

This collection of six short stories features characters from various Native nations. “Grandfather Crosses Over” chronicles Doreen’s respect and then grief for her grandfather of the Jicarilla Apache nation. In “Powwow,” fancy dancer Homer watches with pride as his older brother Lester, a new army private, carries the American flag at a powwow at the Sac and Fox fairgrounds. The book also includes an introduction to dispel stereotypes and an extensive glossary. — Cynthia Leitich Smith

Cloudwalker: Contemporary Native American Stories

Joel Monture

Illustrator:

Carson Waterman

Age Level:

9-12

Shannon lives in Minneapolis with her grandmother, sisters, and cousins and is a fancy shawl dancerA bit of tribal history and culture relevant to the events described, excellent full-color photographs and maps, and further reading lists make these titles essential purchases for school, public, and tribal libraries. — School Library Journal (We Are Still Here: Native Americans Today)

Shannon: An Ojibway Dancer (We Are Still Here)

Sandra King

Illustrator:

Catherine Whipple

Age Level:

6-9

Kevin Locke, a member of the Lakota nation who lives on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota, performs the hoop dance all over the world. He learned the intricate, demanding dance as a young man, and for him the dance is one way to keep Lakota traditions alive. Readers will learn where Locke lives, how he makes his costumes and his hoops, and why the hoop is an important symbol to many American Indians. — Booklist

Lakota Hoop Dancer

Kevin Locke, Jacqueline Left Hand Bull, Suzanne Haldane

Age Level:

6-9

This photo essay takes readers on a visit to a powwow but does so from an insider’s perspective. Braine packs a lot of information into this slim volume, including a preface in which she gives an excellent personal talk on why she loves powwows and what they mean to many American Indian people today. She goes on to explain how they started, when and where they are held, and what one can expect to see there. — School Library Journal (We Are Still Here: Native Americans Today)

Drumbeat…Heartbeat

Susan Braine

Age Level:

9-12

Former elementary school teacher Linda Boyden presents Powwow’s Coming, a picture book that teaches young people about the Native American custom of the powwow dance. The colorful, paper-collage style illustrations and simple, rhyming text reflect the joy and enthusiasm inherent in a powwow celebration. “Powwows started / long ago, / but dances change, / powwows grow. // Still today the / steps and songs / bless the dancers, / make them strong.” A wonderful read-aloud book. — Midwest Book Review

Powwow’s Coming

Linda Boyden

Age Level:

3-6

Haske, a Navaho boy, is torn between the past of his people’s rich, self-sustaining culture and a present that opens up new possibilities. His parents propel him in one direction, his grandfather in another, his teacher in still another. The boy has a secret wish, but its fulfillment seems beyond reach. At night he listens to the hoot of the owl in the cedar tree and wonders if good fortune or bad is in store. This beautifully written story finally supplies the answer.

Owl in the Cedar Tree

Natachee Scott Momaday

Age Level:

9-12

Product Description: Eva lives in an Inuit village in northern Canada where people search along the bottom of the seabed beneath a thick shelf of ice for mussels to eat in the winter. Eva usually helps her mother, but for the first time, she’s going to go by herself. On the ice, her candle goes out, and the tide threatens to return! When she is finally safe with her mother, Eva proclaims, “That was my very last first time walking alone on the bottom of the sea.” ALA Notable Children’s Book.

Very Last First Time

Jan Andrews

Illustrator:

John Wallace

Age Level:

6-9

Product Description: An action-packed coming-of-age story, Gift Horse is a wonderfully evocative introduction to 19th-century Native American life on the Great Plains. When his father gives him a gift horse, marking the beginning of his journey to manhood, Flying Cloud and the horse, Storm, spend their days hunting and roughhousing with the other boys and their horses. But when an enemy raiding party steals his beloved Storm, Flying Cloud faces the ultimate rite of passage.

Gift Horse: A Lakota Story

S. D. Nelson

Age Level:

6-9

Itse Selu: Cherokee Harvest Festival

Daniel Pennington

Illustrator:

Joel Stewart

Age Level:

6-9

Diné/Navajo historian Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale tells the story of the forced removal of the Navajos to Bosque Redondo, a reservation in eastern New Mexico. Collectively known as the Long Walk, the approximately 400-mile-long series of marches was endured by more than 8,000 men, women, and children. The text includes photographs, artwork, a timeline, and recommended resources.

The Long Walk: The Forced Navajo Exile

Jennifer Denetdale

Age Level:

9-12

Learn about the Native American roots of many inventions, foods, and games that are part of our lives today, such as maple syrup, volleyball, and sunscreen. With descriptive photos and information-packed text, this book explores eight different categories in which the creativity of Native Americans from across the continent led to important inventions, innovations, and ideas.

A Native American Thought of It

Rocky Landon, David MacDonald

Age Level:

6-9

Native staff members at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian have handled a wide array of questions over the years. This book presents their answers. Organized by topics such as sovereignty, history, clothing and housing, languages, and music, the book features nearly 100 thought-provoking questions and answers about American Indians, illustrated with black-and-white photographs from the NMAI’s collection and elsewhere.

Do All Indians Live in Tipis?: Questions and Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian

National Museum Of The American Indian

Age Level:

9-12

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Book Finder

My Name Is Seepeetza

Home to Medicine Mountain

The Range Eternal

This Land Is My Land

The People Shall Continue

Malian’s Song

Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship & Freedom

A Coyote Columbus Story

Yetsa’s Sweater

Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness into Light

Muskrat Will Be Swimming

Morning on the Lake

Cloudwalker: Contemporary Native American Stories

Shannon: An Ojibway Dancer (We Are Still Here)

Lakota Hoop Dancer

Drumbeat…Heartbeat

Powwow’s Coming

Owl in the Cedar Tree

Very Last First Time

Gift Horse: A Lakota Story

Itse Selu: Cherokee Harvest Festival

The Long Walk: The Forced Navajo Exile

A Native American Thought of It

Do All Indians Live in Tipis?: Questions and Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian

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