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 - 16 of 16  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 "Code talker"
Star rating for Code talker
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become code talkers, sending messages in their native tongue during World War II.
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 "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 "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 "An indigenous peoples' history of the United States for young people"
Star rating for An indigenous peoples' history of the United States for young people
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity. The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics,...
Book cover for "Killer of enemies"
Star rating for Killer of enemies
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In a world that has barely survived an apocalypse that leaves it with pre-twentieth century technology, Lozen is a monster hunter for four tyrants who are holding her family hostage"--
Book cover for "Love after the end"
Star rating for Love after the end
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"A[n] ... anthology of queer Indigenous speculative fiction, edited by the author of Jonny Appleseed. This ... fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer) Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism's...
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 "#NotYourPrincess"
Star rating for #NotYourPrincess
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Whether looking back to a troubled past or welcoming a hopeful future, the powerful voices of Indigenous women across North America resound in this book. In the same style as the best-selling Dreaming in Indian, #NotYourPrincess presents an eclectic collection of poems, essays, interviews, and art that [combines] to express the experience of being a Native woman. Stories of abuse, humiliation, and stereotyping are countered by the voices of passionate...
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 "Touching Spirit Bear"
Star rating for Touching Spirit Bear
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
After his anger erupts into violence, fifteen year-old Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the Native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.
Book cover for "Trickster"
Star rating for Trickster
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"All cultures have tales of the trickster, a craft creature or being who uses cunning to get food, steal precius possessions, or simply cause mischief. He disrupts the order of things, often humiliating others and sometimes himself. In Native American traditions, the trickster takes many forms, from coyote or rabbit to raccoon or raven. In the original graphic anthology of Native American trickster tales, Trickster brings together Native American...
Book cover for "Warrior girl unearthed"
Star rating for Warrior girl unearthed
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Perry Firekeeper-Birch has always known who she is - the laidback twin, the troublemaker, the best fisher on Sugar Island. Her aspirations won't ever take her far from home, and she wouldn't have it any other way. But as the rising number of missing Indigenous women starts circling closer to home, as her family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder investigation, and as greedy grave robbers seek to profit off of what belongs to her Anishinaabe...