Diverse Characters

In the footsteps of Crazy Horse book cover

In the footsteps of Crazy Horse

Joseph Marshall

jFICTION Marshall Joseph
Kids, Diverse Characters

Teased for his fair coloring, eleven-year-old Jimmy McClean travels with his maternal grandfather, Nyles High Eagle, to learn about his Lakota heritage while visiting places significant in the life of Crazy Horse, the nineteenth-century Lakota leader and warrior, in a tale that weaves the past with the present. Includes historical note and glossary.

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

A girl called Echo book cover

A girl called Echo

Katherena Vermette

GRAPHIC NOVEL Vermette Girl
Young Adult, Graphic Novels, Diverse Characters

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

Tales of the mighty code talkers book cover

Tales of the mighty code talkers

COMIC Tales
Young Adult, Graphic Novels, Diverse Characters

"There has been a great deal of writing the past several decades about Native American Code Talkers of World War Two. The published works have been about Navajos and the tremendous contribution they made in the Pacific campaigns of the war. What is often overlooked is the role played in both World Wars by men of other tribes. There were Cherokee, Choctaw, Comanche, Creek and other tribal representatives with their languages involved as well. Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers, a graphic anthology of historically based stories, begins to fill that void. Seven stories -- two by the book's editor, Arigon Starr, dealing with Choctaw and Comanche code talkers, one by Roy Boney, Jr. on Cherokees, one by Johnnie Diacon on Creeks, and one by Jonathan Nelson on Navajos, plus stories from Lee Francis IV and Michael Sheyahshe -- provide an excellent rendering of the subject."

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

Fire song book cover

Fire song

Adam Garnet Jones

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Jones Adam
Young Adult, Diverse Characters

"How can Shane reconcile his feelings for David with his desire for a better life? Shane is still reeling from the suicide of his kid sister, Destiny. How could he have missed the fact that she was so sad? He tries to share his grief with his girlfriend, Tara, but she's too concerned with her own needs to offer him much comfort. What he really wants is to be able to turn to the one person on the rez whom he loves--his friend, David. Things go from bad to worse as Shane's dream of going to university is shattered and his grieving mother withdraws from the world. Worst of all, he and David have to hide their relationship from everyone. Shane feels that his only chance of a better life is moving to Toronto, but David refuses to join him. When yet another tragedy strikes, the two boys have to make difficult choices about their future together. With deep insight into the life of Indigenous people on the reserve, this book masterfully portrays how a community looks to the past for guidance and comfort while fearing a future of poverty and shame"--

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

Give me some truth : a novel with paintings book cover

Give me some truth : a novel with paintings

Eric L. Gansworth

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Ganswort Eric
Young Adult, Diverse Characters

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 and Maggi have to make a place for themselves.

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

Hearts unbroken book cover

Hearts unbroken

Cynthia Leitich Smith

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Smith Cynthia
Young Adult, Diverse Characters

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 Wizard of Oz has been provoking backlash in their mostly white, middle-class Kansas town. As tensions mount at school, so does a romance between Lou and Joey. But 'dating while Native' can be difficult. In trying to protect her own heart, will Lou break Joey's? -- adapted from jacket

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

Apple in the middle book cover

Apple in the middle

Dawn Quigley

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Quigley Dawn
Young Adult, Diverse Characters

"Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descent, not that she really even knew how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesn't accept her either. And so begins her quirky habits to gain acceptance. Apple's name, chosen by her Indian mother on her deathbed, has a double meaning: treasured apple of my eye, but also the negative connotation a person who is red, or Indian, on the outside, but white on the inside. After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in northern North Dakota for the first time. Apple learns to deal with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while she tries to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man who loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man. Bouncing in the middle of two cultures, Apple meets her Indian relatives, shatters Indian stereotypes, and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color." --

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

The birchbark house book cover

The birchbark house

Louise Erdrich

jFICTION Erdrich, Louise
Kids, Diverse Characters

Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W

I can make this promise book cover

I can make this promise

Christine Day

jFICTION Day Christin
Kids, Diverse Characters

"When twelve-year-old Edie finds letters and photographs in her attic that change everything she thought she knew about her Native American mother's adoption, she realizes she has a lot to learn about her family's history and her own identity"--

Anne W's picture

Added by Anne W