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Diverse Reads November 2021
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LibbyTo explore digital books for Native American Heritage Month, visit this link. Enjoy these and thousands of additional titles in the free Libby app, available for Android and iOS mobile devices. Or, use Libby in your web browser at libbyapp.com
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Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
by Kevin Noble Maillard; illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
What it's about: "Fry bread is..." opens each section of this inviting picture book, which uses the familiar food as a common ground from which to explore the diversity of Native American history, culture, and communities.
Don't miss: The fry bread recipe in the final pages, and the endpapers featuring the names of tribal nations.
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We Are Water Protectors
by Carole Lindstrom; illustrated by Michaela Goade
What it's about: One brave Indigenous girl describes the sacredness of water, the way it unites nature and communities, and the importance of defending it against "the black snake" of an oil pipeline.
About the creators: Author Lindstrom (Metis/Ojibwe) and illustrator Goade (Tlingit/Haida) infuse the book's powerful text and lavish, flowing illustrations with stories and symbols from their own rich heritages.
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Fall in Line, Holden!
by Daniel W. Vandever
Meet: Holden, a young Navajo boy with a boundless imagination.
What happens: At school, all of the kids are expected to stick to rigid rules, but Holden's imagination turns his everyday surroundings into a world of wonders.
About the author: This is the picture book debut of Daniel W. Vandever, who is the grandson of a Navajo code talker.
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Everybody Needs a Rock
by Byrd Baylor; illustrated by Peter Parnall
Yes, you DO need a rock! The young rock enthusiast who narrates this picture book explains why and shares ten rules for finding the perfect rock.
Want a taste? "The size must be perfect. It has to feel easy in your hand when you close your fingers over it. It has to feel jumpy in your pocket when you run."
Hand this book to: Budding nature fans and any youngster who knows that rocks rock!
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Healer of the Water Monster
by Brian Young
The setting: New Mexico, where Nathan Todacheenie's grandmother hosts him for the summer on their ancestral lands — but there is more to the desert than meets the eye.
Reviewers say: "Gentle, complex characters and flawed, loving human relationships lend depth to Young's worlds-spanning novel" (Publishers Weekly).
Try this next: Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun is another fast-paced fantasy focusing on Navajo characters and legends.
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I Can Make This Promise
by Christine Day
What it's about: Twelve-year-old Edie always believed that her Native American mom lost touch with her heritage when she was adopted by a white family, but that belief is shaken when Edie finds a hidden box of photos and letters from Edith, a Native woman she's never met — and who looks a lot like Edie herself.
Why you might like it: Inspired by the author's own life, this moving story blends everyday worries (ugh, new braces hurt) with tangled family history.
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Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids
by Cynthia Leitich Smith (editor)
What it's about: At the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow, Native kids from different nations across North America come together to connect, dance, laugh, and remember.
How it's told: Each chapter is a new story from a different Native author, with a shared setting and overlapping characters to link them all together.
What happens: Cousins unite, frenemies clash, a kid meets his biological brother, another kid survives a wild road trip with his elders, and a rez dog observes the humans.
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Indian No More
by Charlene Willing McManis and Traci Sorell
In 1954: Eight-year-old Regina and her family lose their home and identities when the federal government declares that the Umpqua tribe no longer exists.
What happens: When the government forces Regina's family to move to Los Angeles, Regina finds a whole new world in her neighborhood on 58th Place.
About the author: Charlene Willing McManis's Umpqua tribal history was the basis for this story.
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Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O'Dell
What happens: When twelve-year-old Karana is stranded on an island, she makes a life for herself against all odds.
Did you know? Karana's story is based on the life of Juana Maria, a Nicoleño Native American who lived alone on San Nicolas Island for 18 years during the 19th century.
About the author: Scott O'Dell won the 1961 Newbery Medal for this novel.
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Firekeeper's Daughter
by Angeline Boulley
Starring: Daunis Fontaine, an 18-year-old girl who has roots in the local Ojibwe reservation and in a long line of French fur traders. Daunis is brave, imperfect, and curious as she digs for information about the mysterious person selling meth to members of her community.
Why you should read it: Without shying away from complex topics like grief, citizenship, drugs, and identity, author Angeline Boulley creates a thoughtful and layered thriller.
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Give Me Some Truth
by Eric Gansworth
Welcome to: The Tuscarora Reservation, 1980, home to 17-year-old aspiring rock star Carson and 15-year-old artist Maggi.
What happens: Carson, Maggi, and their friend Lewis join forces to enter Battle of the Bands and protest a racist restaurant near the Rez.
Look for: The author's playlist and paintings, which round out this up-close look at the intersecting lives of two Native teens.
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The Marrow Thieves
by Cherie Dimaline
In a world... where climate change has ravaged North America, Métis teen Frenchie and his fellow survivors are on the run from the Recruiters, who seek to harvest and sell Indigenous people's bone marrow in order to restore white people's lost ability to dream.
Read it for: Gritty, vivid world-building that makes you feel like you've stepped into the post-apocalyptic future.
Award buzz: Honored in 2018 by the American Indian Youth Literature Award (as well as several other awards).
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Elatsoe
by Darcie Little Badger
What it's about: In a modern-day U.S. infused with magic, aspiring paranormal investigator Ellie looks into her cousin's murder. Using both her know-how and her ability to wake the ghosts of animals (a power inherited from her Lipan Apache ancestors), Ellie uncovers something truly sinister.
Art alert: Intricate illustrations by Rovina Cai heighten the atmosphere of this suspenseful read.
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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
Starring: Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, fourteen-year-old bookworm, cartoonist, and Spokane Indian.
What happens: Shortly into his freshman year, Junior transfers from a school on the Spokane reservation to a public school 22 miles away (where the team mascot just might be the only other Indian).
Want a taste? "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats."
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My Heart Is a Chainsaw
by Stephen Graham Jones
What it's about: Jade Daniels, an alienated 17-year-old high schooler of Blackfoot descent, finds escape from her dead-end life in rural Proofrock, Idaho in a steady diet of slasher flicks. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, we're pulled into Jade's dark fever dream as she predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.
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The Sentence
by Louise Erdrich
What it's about: A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
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Trail of Lightning
by Rebecca Roanhorse
What it's about: When a small town needs her help in finding a missing girl, Maggie Hoskie, a Dinétah monster hunter and supernaturally gifted killer, reluctantly enlists the help of an unconventional medicine man to uncover the terrifying truth behind the disappearance—and her own past.
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
by Sherman Alexie
What it's about: A collection of interconnected short stories portraying life on the Spokane Indian Reservation, with each story spotlighting different aspects of the lives of its inhabitants as well as the historical and cultural traumas that plague modern Native Americans.
Page to screen: Alexie's book was the basis for the classic indie film Smoke Signals, starring Adam Beach and Irene Bedard.
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There There
by Tommy Orange
What it's about: Orange’s award-winning debut grapples with the complex history and troubled modern inheritances of Native Americans as the lives of twelve contemporary Native American characters collide on the days leading up to the Big Oakland Powwow.
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Postcolonial Love Poem
by Natalie Diaz
**Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry**
What it's about: Diaz (When My Brother Was an Aztec) makes the love poem into a frame for contemplating the politics and injustices that have long oppressed Native Americans.
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Poet Warrior: A Memoir
by Joy Harjo
What it's about: Three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life. Harjo weaves together stories of ancestors and family with the poetry and music that she first encountered as a child, and sheds light on the rituals that nourish her as an artist, mother, wife, and community member.
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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present
by David Treuer
What it's about: An anthropologist's chronicle of Native American life from the Wounded Knee massacre to the present traces the unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention of distinct tribe cultures that assimilated into mainstream life to preserve Native identity.
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Te Ata
What it's about: Based on the true story of one of the greatest Native American performers/storytellers of all time.
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Indian Horse
What it's about: When Saul Indian Horse loses his family and home, he is placed in a horrific boarding school, where he achieves a tentative salvation in the form of hockey, but his skill in the sport doesn't stop the hatred and indignities he has to face.
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The Rider
What it's about: A cowboy searches for a new identity after sustaining a near fatal head injury.
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Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band
What it's about: Inspired by Mohawk guitarist Robbie Robertson’s autobiography Testimony, this film shares the story of the group known simply as The Band. Mixing exclusive interviews and archival footage, the documentary captures the inspiration and musicianship behind hits like “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Weight,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
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Fresno County Public Library 2420 Mariposa St. Fresno, California 93721 559-600-READ (7323)www.fresnolibrary.org |
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