YA Native American Heritage Month Reads

Books found in the Young Adult collection that highlight the Native American experience. YA novels are made up of books for a wide age range (12-18 years old) and includes a variety of different topics and interests. Not all titles will be appropriate for all readers*

Showing 1 - 20 of 22  There are a total of 44 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian"
Star rating for The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Book cover for "After the fall"
Star rating for After the fall
Description:
A young adult debut about a teen girl who wrestles with rumors, reputation, and her relationships with two brothers.
Book cover for "A constellation of minor bears"
Star rating for A constellation of minor bears
Description:
"Before that awful Saturday, Molly used to be inseparable from her brother Hank and his best friend Tray. The indoor climbing accident that left Hank with a traumatic brain injury filled Molly with anger. While she knows the accident wasn't Tray's fault, she will never forgive him for being there and failing to stop the damage. But she can't forgive herself for not being there, either. Determined to go on the trio's postgraduation hike of the Pacific...
Book cover for "Elatsoe"
Star rating for Elatsoe
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"Imagine an America very similar to our own. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should...
Book cover for "The everlasting road"
Star rating for The everlasting road
Series:
Description:
"Devastated by the loss of her beloved older brother to cancer, Bugz returns to the place where she can always find solace and strength: the Floraverse. Over the past year, she has gained back all that she had lost in that virtual world, and while the remaining ClanLess members still plot against her, she is easily able to overcome their attacks. Even better, she's been secretly working on a bot that will be both an incredible weapon and a source...
Book cover for "Firekeeper's daughter"
Star rating for Firekeeper's daughter
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
Daunis, who's part Ojibwe, defers attending the University of Michigan to care for her mother and reluctantly becomes involved in the investigation of a series of drug-related deaths.
Book cover for "Funeral songs for dying girls"
Star rating for Funeral songs for dying girls
Description:
"Funeral Songs For Dying Girls is a young adult novel about an Indigenous girl who lives on the grounds of a cemetery with her widowed father."--
Book cover for "The ghost collector"
Star rating for The ghost collector
Description:
"Ghosts aren't meant to stick around forever ... Ghosts are everywhere in Shelly's life. Recently passed people, pets, and a boy who lives in the local graveyard and lends her Smiths tapes are all part of spirit world she and her grandmother are privy to. In the tradition of their Cree ancestors, Shelly and her grandmother help these lost souls transition to the next world by catching them in their hair. But when Shelly's mom dies, her relationship...
Book cover for "Give me some truth"
Star rating for Give me some truth
Description:
In 1980 life is hard on the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New York, and most of the teenagers feel like they are going nowhere: Carson Mastick dreams of forming a rock band, and Maggi Bokoni longs to create her own conceptual artwork instead of the traditional beadwork that her family sells to tourists--but tensions are rising between the reservation and the surrounding communities, and somehow in the confusion of politics and growing up Carson...
Book cover for "Hearts unbroken"
Star rating for Hearts unbroken
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
When Louise Wolfe's boyfriend mocks and disrespects Native people in front of her, she breaks things off and dumps him over e-mail. She'd rather spend her senior year with her family and friends and working on the school newspaper. The editors pair her up with Joey Kairouz, an ambitious new photojournalist, and in no time the paper's staff find themselves with a major story to cover: the school musical director's inclusive approach to casting The...
Book cover for "Hunting by stars"
Star rating for Hunting by stars
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
French has been captured by the Recruiters, confined to one of the infamous residential schools, where the government extracts the marrow of Indigenous people in order to steal the ability to dream, and where the captured are programmed to betray others of their kind, something which he discovers has been done to his brother; meanwhile the other survivors, his found family, are hunting for him, determined to rescue him--and French has to decide just...
Book cover for "Looking for smoke"
Star rating for Looking for smoke
Description:
Four teens on the Blackfeet Reservation find themselves the suspects of an investigation when a classmate is found murdered during the annual Indian Days celebrations.
Book cover for "The marrow thieves"
Star rating for The marrow thieves
Series:
Average Rating:
3.3 stars
Description:
In a future world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's indigenous population--and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow--and dreams--means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a 15-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite...
Book cover for "Rain is not my Indian name"
Star rating for Rain is not my Indian name
Description:
"It's been six months since Cassidy Rain Berghoff's best friend, Galen, died, and up until now she has succeeded in shutting herself off from the world. But when controversy arises around Aunt Georgia's Indian Camp in their mostly white midwestern community, Rain decides to face the outside world again, with a new job photographing the campers for her town's newspaper. Soon, Rain has to decide how involved she wants to become in Indian Camp. Does...
Book cover for "Ready when you are"
Star rating for Ready when you are
Description:
"Jackson is a teenage boy living in the Mish, an Aboriginal community in Australia. He hangs out with his mates, has a girl who's really interested in him, and lives with a family that doesn't ask too many questions. He feels he's got everything under control...until Tomas comes along. Tomas is a mysterious boy with a troubled past who's been taken in by Jackson's aunt.Jackson's aunt and cousins come to visit, Tomas and Jackson are suddenly sharing...
Book cover for "Rez ball"
Star rating for Rez ball
Description:
These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team, even though he can't help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon's former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his...
Book cover for "Saints of the household"
Star rating for Saints of the household
Author:
Description:
When brothers Max and Jay help a classmate in trouble, they struggle with the consequences of their violent actions and worry they may be more like their abusive father than they thought, so the brothers turn to their Bribri roots to find their way forward.
Book cover for "Sheine Lende"
Star rating for Sheine Lende
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can't afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood and the loss of Shane's father and her grandparents. They don't think they'll ever get their home back. Then Shane's mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends,...
Book cover for "A snake falls to Earth"
Star rating for A snake falls to Earth
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She's always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories. Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake. Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their...
Book cover for "The summer of bitter and sweet"
Star rating for The summer of bitter and sweet
Description:
"Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She'll be working in her family's ice-cream shack with her newly ex-boyfriend--whose kisses never made her feel desire, only discomfort--and her former best friend King, who is back in their Canadian prairie town after disappearing three years ago without a word. But when she gets a letter from her biological father--a man she hoped would stay behind bars for the rest of his life--Lou immediately...