In celebration of Native American Heritage month, we’re featuring titles written for teens by Native American and First Nations authors. Some of these are realistic, some are fantasy, and some take the form of memoirs.
In Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, science-oriented Daunis uses her Ojibwe knowledge of plants, medicine, and chemistry to help her uncover the maker and dealer of the meth that is killing members of her tribe.
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline shows a dystopian future in which indigenous people are the only humans who can still dream, and that is why white “recruiters” are hunting them, believing that harvesting the marrow of indigenous people will restore this ability to them. After Frenchie loses his brother to the recruiters, he runs to the north to escape, but finds new friends and allies on his journey.
The sequel, Hunting by Stars, follows French after he is captured by recruiters and learns how they are programming captives to betray others. French must soon decide how much he is willing to reveal about his new family’s whereabouts.
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jenny Ferguson follows Métis teen Lou, who is working at her uncle’s struggling ice cream parlor, breaking up with her aggressive white boyfriend/coworker, and dealing with the fact that her violent father has just been released from prison and is looking to meet her.
In Apple: Skin to the Core, Eric Gansworth depicts his personal history as an Onondaga man watching his family leave, return, and leave again as he grows to become an artist.
In Wab Kinew’s novel, Walking in Two Worlds is how Bugz sees her life: the real and the virtual, as she navigates body image issues and challenging friendships in the real world, and yet is a dominant, confident gamer in the virtual world, beating misogynist, racist enemies. When she and a fellow gamer meet in person, she must learn to trust him and face her fears about betrayal and loyalty.
In Red Paint, Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe depicts her life growing up in the Pacific Northwest living the punk life on one hand, and learning to respect and uphold tribal traditions and customs on the other, especially those of her great-grandmother, Vi Hilbert, who helped save and teach the Lushootseed language.
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger tells the story of Nina, a Lipan girl in our world learning to become a documentarian of her people’s Apache stories, and Oli, a cottonmouth living in Reflecting World. Their lives intertwine when her grandmother and his frog friend are endangered by climate change.
The Barren Grounds by David Robertson follows Morgan and Eli, two Cree children living with a white foster family, entirely disconnected from their tribe until they discover a portal in the attic that leads them to the always winter land of Askí.
In Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask, Anton Treuer answers questions from Native and non-Native young readers alike.
In Katherena Vermette’s graphic novel A Girl Called Echo, young Métis teen Echo is transported from a history lecture to an old bison hunt with her ancestors and witnesses an incident that leads to the Canadian Pemmican Wars.
~ posted by Wally B.
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