Must-Read Books by Indigenous Authors
From page-turning science fiction to moving memoirs, celebrate the stories and voices of Native American and Indigenous authors. Spotlight and uplift #StoriesoftheLand, this month and every month!
-
1
Add to BookshelfThe Whistler
by Nick Medina
A young man is haunted by a mythological specter bent on stealing everything he loves in this unsettling horror from the author of Indian Burial Ground and Sisters of the Lost Nation.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
2
Add to Bookshelf
We Survived the Night
by Julian Brave NoiseCat
A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today, and the director of the Oscar®-nominated documentary, Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence. A soulful, formally daring, and indelible work from an important new voice.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
3
Add to Bookshelf
Rangikura
by Tayi Tibble
A fiery second collection of poetry from the acclaimed Indigenous New Zealand writer that U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo calls, “One of the most startling and original poets of her generation.”
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$28.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
4
Add to Bookshelf
Medicine River
by Mary Annette Pember
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$29.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
5
Add to Bookshelf
Small Ceremonies
by Kyle Edwards
A poignant and heart-wrenching coming-of-age story that follows the friendships, hopes, fears, and struggles of a group of Native high school students from Winnipeg, Manitoba’s North End, illuminating what it’s like to grow up in the heart of an Indigenous city.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$29.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
6
Add to Bookshelf
If the Dead Belong Here
by Carson Faust
When a young girl goes missing, the ghosts of the past collide with her family’s secrets in a mesmerizing Native American Southern Gothic. Carson Faust captivates in this chilling literary debut that confronts the specter of colonization and the generational scars it leaves on Native American families.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
7
Add to Bookshelf
The El
by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
From the co-editor of the bestselling anthology Never Whistle at Night, a semi-autobiographical novel that follows a group of teenage gang members as they trek across Chicago to a momentous meeting, inspired by the cult classic The Warriors.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
8
Add to Bookshelf
Buffalo Dreamer
by Violet Duncan
An illuminating novel about the importance of reclaiming the past, based on the author’s family history.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$17.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
9
Add to Bookshelf
Hole in the Sky
by Daniel H. Wilson
Daniel H. Wilson’s Hole in the Sky is a riveting thriller in the most creative tradition of extraterrestrial fiction. Drawing on Wilson’s unique background as both a threat forecaster for the United States Air Force and a Cherokee Nation citizen, this propulsive novel asks probing questions about nonhuman intelligence, the Western mindset, and humans’ understanding of reality.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
10
Add to Bookshelf
Love Is a War Song
by Danica Nava
A Muscogee pop star and a cowboy who couldn’t be more different come together to strike a deal in this new romantic comedy by Danica Nava.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
11
Add to Bookshelf
Indian Burial Ground
by Nick Medina
A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
12
Add to Bookshelf
This Land
by Ashley Fairbanks
This land is your land now, but who did it belong to before? This engaging primer about native lands invites kids to trace history and explore their communities.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$18.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
13
Add to Bookshelf
Project 562
by Matika Wilbur
A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$50.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
14
Add to Bookshelf
Probably Ruby
by Lisa Bird-Wilson
Given up for adoption as an infant, Ruby is raised by a white couple who understand little of her Indigenous heritage. This is the great mystery that hovers over Ruby’s life — who her people are and how to reconcile what is missing. As the novel spans time and multiple points of view, we meet the people connected to Ruby: Her birth parents and grandparents; her adoptive parents; the men and women Ruby has been romantically involved with; a beloved uncle; and Ruby’s children. Taken together, these characters form a kaleidoscope of stories, giving Ruby’s life dignity and meaning.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
15
Add to Bookshelf
Bad Cree
by Jessica Johns
Mackenzie, a young Cree woman, continues to have dreams that return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina’s untimely death: A weekend at the family’s lakefront campsite. But when the waking world starts closing in, too, she returns to her rural hometown in Alberta, finding her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. And still, her dreams intensify, ultimately forcing her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community, and the land they call home.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
16
Add to Bookshelf
Blood Sisters
by Vanessa Lillie
Discover this visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women … one of them her sister. And learn more from Vanessa Lillie on the true stories behind this novel.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
17
Add to Bookshelf
Remember
by Joy Harjo
US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s iconic poem “Remember,” illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Michaela Goade, invites young readers to pause and reflect on the wonder of the world around them, and to remember the importance of their place in it.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$18.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
18
Add to Bookshelf
Mask of the Deer Woman
by Laurie L. Dove
At rock bottom following her daughter’s death, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$29.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
19
Add to Bookshelf
Little Big Bully
by Heid E. Erdrich
Little Big Bully begins with a question asked of a collective and troubled we – how did we come to this? In answer, this book offers personal myths, American and Native American contexts, and allegories driven by women’s resistance to narcissists, stalkers, and harassers. The past for Indigenous people, ecosystem collapse from near-extinction of bison, and the present epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women underlie these poems. Here, survivors shout back at useless cautionary tales with their own courage and visions of future worlds made well.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
20
Add to Bookshelf
And Then She Fell
by Alicia Elliott
A mind-bending, razor-sharp look at motherhood and mental health that follows a young Indigenous woman who discovers the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$28.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
21
Add to Bookshelf
If I Ever Get Out of Here
by Eric Gansworth
Read by Eric Gansworth
Lewis “Shoe” Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: The joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he’s not used to is white people being nice to him — people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family’s poverty from George. He also has to deal with the vicious Evan Reininger, who makes Lewis the special target of his wrath. But when everyone else is on Evan’s side, how can he be defeated? And if George finds out the truth about Lewis’s home — will he still be his friend?
Add to BookshelfBuy from Other Retailers:
-
22
Add to Bookshelf
Woman of Light
by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
23
Add to Bookshelf
Never Whistle at Night
Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night, which can cause evil spirits to appear — and even follow you home. These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. These stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
24
Add to Bookshelf
The Warrior Within
by D.J. Vanas
Drawing inspiration from Native American philosophy and tradition, The Warrior Within outlines a new model for personal power in the face of overwhelming chaos. A true warrior is not the toughest or bravest person in the room. A true warrior is committed to self-mastery, knows how to navigate change and disruption, transforms setbacks into opportunities for achievement, refuses to quit, and most importantly, always fights for something bigger than the self. With a vast array of stories and examples, from vision quests to treacherous hikes to veterans and service providers at the front lines, Vanas shows how to apply these principles to transform how you show up both for yourself and those around you.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$29.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
25
Add to Bookshelf
Colonization and the Wampanoag Story
by Linda Coombs
Until now, you’ve only heard one side of the story: The “discovery” of America told by Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Colonists. Here’s the true story of America from the Indigenous perspective.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$8.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
26
Add to Bookshelf
Winter in the Blood
by James Welch
During his life, James Welch came to be regarded as a master of American prose, and his first novel, Winter in the Blood, is one of his most enduring works. The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana’s vast emptiness.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$26.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
27
Add to Bookshelf
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath
by Moniquill Blackgoose
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations — until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, but unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. With reluctance they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed … Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: The world needs changing — and they might just be the ones to do it.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
28
Add to Bookshelf
She Persisted: Maria Tallchief
by Christine Day and Chelsea Clinton
In this chapter book biography by award-winning author Christine Day, readers learn about the amazing life of Maria Tallchief. Maria Tallchief loved to dance, but was told that she might need to change her Osage name to one that sounded more Russian to make it as a professional ballerina. She refused, and worked hard at dancing her best, becoming America’s first prima ballerina, and inspiring many famous American ballets that were created for her.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$6.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
29
Add to Bookshelf
Eagle Drums
by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
Read by Irene Bedard
A magical realistic middle grade debut about the origin story of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast, a Native Alaskan tradition which is still celebrated in times of bounty. It is a harrowing journey on the unexpected lessons of the natural world, the past that shapes us, and the community that binds us.
Add to BookshelfBuy from Other Retailers:
-
30
Add to Bookshelf
Kapaemahu
by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson
An Indigenous legend about how four extraordinary individuals of dual male and female spirit, or Mahu, brought healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii. With illuminating words and stunning illustrations by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson, and Daniel Sousa, this children’s book is a monument to an Indigenous Hawaiian legend and a classic in the making.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$17.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
31
Add to Bookshelf
Dog Flowers
by Danielle Geller
Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
32
Add to Bookshelf
Carry
by Toni Jensen
Toni Jensen grew up around guns. And she has always known that in this she is not alone. As a Métis woman, she is no stranger to the violence enacted on the bodies of Indigenous women, on Indigenous land, and the ways it is hidden, ignored, forgotten. In Carry, Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language we use to speak about violence in America.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
33
Add to Bookshelf
Kukum
by Michel Jean
Read by Erin Tripp
A Quebec bestseller based on the life of Michel Jean’s great-grandmother that delivers an empathetic portrait of drastic change in an Innu community.
Add to BookshelfBuy from Other Retailers:
-
34
Add to Bookshelf
Notable Native People
by Adrienne Keene
Celebrate the lives, stories, and contributions of Indigenous artists, activists, scientists, athletes, and other changemakers in this beautifully illustrated collection. From luminaries of the past, like nineteenth-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis — the first Black and Native American female artist to achieve international fame — to contemporary figures like linguist jessie little doe baird, who revived the Wampanoag language, Notable Native People highlights the vital impact Indigenous dreamers and leaders have made on the world.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$18.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
35
Add to Bookshelf
There There
by Tommy Orange
Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: All traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
36
Add to Bookshelf
Finding My Dance
by Ria Thundercloud
At four years old, Ria Thundercloud was brought into the powwow circle, ready to dance in the special jingle dress her mother made for her. As she grew up, she danced with her brothers all over Indian country. Then Ria learned more styles — tap, jazz, ballet — but still loved the expressiveness of Indigenous dance. And despite feeling different as one of the only Native American kids in her school, she always knew she could turn to dance to cheer herself up. Follow along as Ria shares her dance journey in this picture book.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$18.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
37
Add to Bookshelf
Sisters of the Lost Nation
by Nick Medina
A young Native girl’s hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe’s reservation leads her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself, in this atmospheric and stunningly poignant debut.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
38
Add to Bookshelf
Prudence
by David Treuer
On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family’s rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence. Prudence is a story of desire, loss, and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it’s about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can’t help telling, and whom – and how – we’re supposed to love.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$16.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
39
Add to Bookshelf
Find Her
by Ginger Reno
Read by Amy Hall
Find Her explores the crisis of missing Indigenous women from the perspective of a sensitive young Cherokee girl who yearns to find her mother, while also navigating a chilling town mystery, a new friendship, and a family in need of healing.
Add to BookshelfBuy from Other Retailers:
-
40
Add to Bookshelf
The Life and Adventures of JoaquĂn Murieta
by John Rollin Ridge
An action-packed blend of folk tale, romance, epic, and myth, The Life and Adventures of JoaquĂn Murieta tells the story of the Gold Rush-era Mexican immigrant JoaquĂn Murieta, whose efforts to find fortune and happiness are thwarted by white settlers who murder his family and drive him off his land. In retaliation, Murieta organizes a band of more than 2,000 outlaws – including the sadistic “Three-Fingered Jack” – who take revenge by murdering, stealing horses, and robbing miners, all with the ultimate goal of reconquering California.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
41
Add to Bookshelf
The Things She’s Seen
by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina
Nothing’s been the same for Beth Teller since the day she died. Her dad is drowning in grief. He’s also the only one who has been able to see and hear her since the accident. But now she’s got a mystery to solve, a mystery that will hopefully remind her detective father that he needs to reconnect with the living. This brilliantly written thriller explores the lives – and deaths – of two girls, and what they will do to win justice.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$11.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
42
Add to Bookshelf
Imaginary Borders
by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
In this personal, moving essay, environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez uses his art and his activism to show that climate change is a human issue that can’t be ignored.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$9.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
43
Add to Bookshelf
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation)
by David Treuer
Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated — if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago. Adapted for young readers, this important young adult nonfiction book is perfect educational material for children and adults alike.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$12.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
44
Add to Bookshelf
Winter’s Gifts
by Kaitlin B. Curtice
A vibrantly illustrated children’s book about an Indigenous girl who finds awe in the resting and waiting that winter teaches us and shares with her friends how Creator’s gift of gratitude can transform the way we see the world.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$14.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
45
Add to Bookshelf
This Is Paradise
by Kristiana Kahakauwila
Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai’i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade, and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua’i, and the Big Island.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$16.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
46
Add to Bookshelf
Call Me Indian
by Fred Sasakamoose
Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. Sasakamoose’s groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics and follows this extraordinary man’s journey to reclaim pride in an identity and a heritage that had previously been used against him.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$15.95Buy from Other Retailers:
-
47
Add to Bookshelf
Indigenous America
by Liam McDonald
American schoolchildren have long been taught that their country was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But the history of Native Americans in the United States goes back tens of tens of thousands of years prior to Columbus’s and other colonizers’ arrivals. So, what’s the true history? Complete with an 8-page color photo insert, Indigenous America introduces and amplifies the oral and written histories that have long been left out of American history books.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$8.99Buy from Other Retailers:
-
48
Add to Bookshelf
Wandering Stars
by Tommy Orange
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout bestseller There There — Wandering Stars traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather’s shooting in There There. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
49
Add to Bookshelf
The Grass Dancer
by Mona Susan Power
Set on a North Dakota reservation, The Grass Dancer reveals the harsh price of unfulfilled longings and the healing power of mystery and hope. Rich with drama and infused with the magic of the everyday, it takes readers on a journey through both past and present — in a tale as resonant and haunting as an ancestor’s memory, and as promising as a child’s dream.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
50
Add to Bookshelf
Ceremony
by Leslie Marmon Silko
Almost forty years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature — a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Masterfully written and filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power.
Add to BookshelfHardcover
$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
51
Add to Bookshelf
Where the Dead Sit Talking
by Brandon Hobson
Set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s, Where the Dead Sit Talking is a stunning and lyrical Native American coming-of-age story.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
52
Add to Bookshelf
Monkey Beach
by Eden Robinson
Infused by turns with darkness and humor, Monkey Beach is a spellbinding voyage into the long, cool shadows of B.C.’s Coast Mountains, blending teen culture, Haisla lore, nature spirits, and human tenderness into a multi-layered story of loss and redemption.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
53
Add to Bookshelf
The Bone People
by Keri Hulme
The powerful, visionary, Booker Award-winning novel about the complicated relationships between three outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$16.00Buy from Other Retailers:
-
54
Add to Bookshelf
Split Tooth
by Tanya Tagaq
From the internationally acclaimed Inuit throat singer who has dazzled and enthralled the world with music it had never heard before, a fierce, tender, heartbreaking story unlike anything you’ve ever read.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
