Must-Read Books by Indigenous Authors

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Intimate, moving, virtuosic, and hilarious, Tayi Tibble is one of the most exciting new voices in poetry today. In Poūkahangatus (pronounced “Pocahontas”), Tibble challenges a dazzling array of mythologies — Greek, Māori, feminist, kiwi — peeling them apart, respinning them in modern terms. Her poems move from rhythmic discussions of the Kardashians, sugar daddies, and Twilight to exquisite renderings of the natural world and precise emotions. Along the way, Tibble scrutinizes perception and how she as a Māori woman fits into trends, stereotypes, and popular culture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Leslie Marmon Silko’s groundbreaking book Storyteller, first published in 1981, blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional and Western literary genres, she explores how stories and storytelling shape people and communities.

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.

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.

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.

Zitkála-Šá grows up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota with her mother until Quaker missionaries arrive, offering the reservation’s children a free education. The catch: They must leave their parents behind and travel to Indiana. Combining Zitkála-Šá’s childhood memories, her short stories, and her poetry, American Indian Stories is the origin story of an activist in the making, a remarkable woman whose extraordinary career deserves wider recognition.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As a child of two military parents, Deb Haaland moved around a lot when she was young. But she persisted, studying hard and eventually earning a law degree. An enrolled member of the Pueblo Laguna nation, Deb was one of the first two Native American women to be elected to Congress. In 2021, when the Senate confirmed her as President Biden’s secretary of the interior, she became the first Native American in history to become a cabinet secretary. She continues to break barriers and inspire future generations to dream of greater opportunities.

Rich with storytelling, history, and folklore, The Lakota Way expresses the heart of Native American philosophy and reveals the path to a fulfilling and meaningful life. Joseph Marshall is a member of the Sicunga Lakota Sioux and has dedicated his entire life to the wisdom he learned from his elders. Here he focuses on the twelve core qualities that are crucial to the Lakota way of life – bravery, fortitude, generosity, wisdom, respect, honor, perseverance, love, humility, sacrifice, truth, and compassion.

An action-packed blend of folk tale, romance, epic, and myth, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta tells the story of the Gold Rush-era Mexican immigrant Joaquín 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.

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.

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.

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.

Not far into our future, the dazzling technology that runs our world turns against us. The human race is almost annihilated, but as its scattered remnants regroup, humanity for the first time unites in a determined effort to fight back. This is the oral history of that conflict, told by an international cast of survivors who experienced this long and bloody confrontation with the machines. Brilliantly conceived and amazingly detailed, Robopocalypse is an action-packed epic with chilling implications about the real technology that surrounds us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A family, separated by duty and distance, waits for a loved one to return home in this lyrical picture book celebrating the bonds of a Cherokee family and the bravery of history-making women pilots.

An extraordinary compilation of legends and rituals about nature’s ever-present signs. From the birds that soar above us to the insects beneath our feet, Native American healer Bobby Lake-Thom shows how the creatures of the earth can aid us in healing and self-knowledge.

A searing, beautifully told memoir by a Native American doctor on the trials of being a doctor-soldier in the Iraq War, and then, after suffering a stroke that left his life irrevocably changed, his struggles to overcome the new limits of his body, mind, and identity.

Growing up on the Osage Indian reservation, Maria Tallchief was a gifted dancer. According to Osage tradition, women are not permitted to dance, but Maria’s parents recognized her gifts and allowed her to break the rule, a decision that would change not only the course of Maria’s life, but the face of classical ballet in America. The fascinating story of Maria Tallchief’s rise to become America’s prima ballerina will captivate young readers.

With eloquent simplicity, Native American medicine man Bear Heart demonstrates how traditional tribal wisdom can help us maintain spiritual and physical health in today’s world.

Kodi, Summer, and Eddy go to a concert in Spirit Park, but a water spirit shows up and swallows up all the musicians! Can the Spirit Rangers bring the music back? Kids ages 3 to 7 will love this full-color storybook based on the latest Netflix preschool show, Spirit Rangers!

Edward Proctor Hunt, a Pueblo Indian man, was born in 1861 in the mesa-top village of Acoma, New Mexico, and initiated into several secret societies, only to later break with his people’s social and reli­gious codes. In 1928, he recited his version of the origin myth of the Acoma Indians to Smithsonian Institution scholars. Hailed by many as the most accessible of all epic narratives recounting a classic Pueblo Indian story of creation, migration, and ulti­mate residence, the myth offers a unique window into Pueblo Indian cosmology and ancient history, revealing how a premodern society answered key existential questions and formed its customs.

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.

Set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s, Where the Dead Sit Talking is a stunning and lyrical Native American coming-of-age story.

Upon its publication in 1833, this unflinching narrative by the vanquished Sauk leader Black Hawk was the first thoroughly adversarial account of frontier hostilities between white settlers and Native Americans. Black Hawk, a complex, contradictory figure, relates his life story and that of his people, who had been forced from western Illinois in what was known as the Black Hawk War. The first published account of a victim of the American war of extermination, this vivid portrait of Indian life stands as a tribute to the author and his extraordinary people, as well as an invaluable historical document.

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.

The powerful, visionary, Booker Award-winning novel about the complicated relationships between three outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage.

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.

Cynthia Leitich Smith turns to realistic fiction with the thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school — and first love.