Contemporary Native-American Fiction for Young Readers
Discover the best contemporary Native-American fiction books for young readers. Explore captivating stories and diverse voices in this curated list of must-read titles.
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Lana's Lakota Moons
by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
This charming and poignant contemporary story about two Lakota girls and their Laotian friend illuminates for children and adults the Lakota meaning of family, friendship, life, and death. In the Lakota way, Lana and her cousin Lori are like sisters, growing up together under the caring eyes of an extended family of parents and grandparents. Also like sisters, they have their share of squabbles and fights, but when they meet a new girl at school who has recently arrived from Laos, they are drawn closer by their shared friendship, their discoveries about cultural differences, and their experience with loss and death. An image of footprints in the snow, one under the other so that it looks as if only one person is walking, becomes the central compelling image in the story. "We can't keep snow from melting," says Grandpa, "But the footprints will always be there, even if we can't see them." Taking her inspiration from Lakota and Asian students in her home state of South Dakota, award-winning children's writer Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve has crafted a simple story of friendship that survives a tragic year, beautifully illuminating along the way many profound truths about the human spirit.
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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
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.
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Who Will Tell My Brother?
by Marlene Carvell
International Reading Association Children's Book Award Winner Determined to sway high school officials to remove disparaging Indian mascots, Evan assumes a struggle that spirals him onto a soul-searching journey and exposes him to a barrage of bullying, taunts, and escalating violence. Marlene Carvell's striking first novel is a timely look at a true story of a mixed-race teen caught up in an exploration of his past, his culture, and his identity.
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Offsides
by Erik E. Esckilsen
Tom Gray, a Mohawk Indian and star soccer player, moves to a new high school and refuses to play for the Warriors with their insulting mascot.
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Sorceress
by Celia Rees
The spellbinding sequel to "Witch Child" reveals what happened to Mary Newbury through a young, modern descendant with an uncanny connection to the past.
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Do Unto Otters
by Laurie Keller
Mr. Rabbit wonders if he will be able to get along with his new neighbors, who are otters, until he is reminded of the golden rule.
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Bearwalker
by Joseph Bruchac
As a member of the Mohawk Bear Clan, Baron has always been fascinated by bears—their gentle strength and untamed power. But the Bearwalker legend, passed down by his ancestors, tells of a different kind of creature—a terrible mix of human and animal that looks like a bear but is really a bloodthirsty monster. The tale never seemed to be more than a scary story. Until now. During a class camping trip deep in the Adirondacks, Baron comes face-to-face with an evil being that is all too real. Although he knows how the story ends in the legend, Baron must overcome this Bearwalker on his own terms.
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Walk Two Moons
by Sharon Creech
"How about a story? Spin us a yarn." Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned. "Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!" And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic. As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold--the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother. In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.
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Skeleton Man
by Joseph Bruchac
Ever since the morning Molly woke up to find that her parents hadvanished, her life has become filled with terrible questions. Where have her parents gone? Who is this spooky old man who's taken her to live with him, claiming to be her great-uncle? Why does he never eat, and why does he lock her in her room at night? What are her dreams of the Skeleton Man trying to tell her? There's one thing Molly does know. She needs to find some answers before it's too late.
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Indian Shoes
by Cynthia Leitich Smith
What do Indian shoes look like, anyway? Like beautiful beaded moccasins...or hightops with bright orange shoelaces? Ray Halfmoon prefers hightops, but he gladly trades them for a nice pair of moccasins for his Grampa. After all, it's Grampa Halfmoon who's always there to help Ray get in and out of scrapes -- like the time they are forced to get creative after a homemade haircut makes Ray's head look like a lawn-mowing accident. This collection of interrelated stories is heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny. Cynthia Leitich Smith writes with wit and candor about what it's like to grow up as a Seminole-Cherokee boy who is just as happy pounding the pavement in windy Chicago as rowing on a take in rural Oklahoma.
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The Talking Earth
by Jean Craighead George
"Billie Wind lives with her Seminole tribe. She follows their customs, but the dangers of pollution and nuclear war she's learned about in school seem much more real to her. How can she believe the Seminole legends about talking animals and earth spirits? She wants answers, not legends. "You are a doubter,"say the men of the Seminole Council and so Billie goes out into the Everglades alone, to stay until she can believe. In the wilderness, she discovers that she must listen to the land and animals in order to survive. With an otter, a panther cub, and a turtle as companions and guides, she begins to understand that the world of her people can give her the answers she seeks.
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Hidden Roots
by Joseph Bruchac
Although he is uncertain why his father is so angry and what secret his mother is keeping from him, eleven-year-old Sonny knows that he is different from his classmates in their small New York town.
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Heartbeat, Drumbeat
by Irene Beltran Hernandez
A coming-of-age story set in the multicultural American Southwest, Heartbeat Drumbeat is rich in descriptions of Native-American and Mexican coming-of-age rituals.
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Little Voice
by Ruby Slipperjack
Unhappy at school and at home, Ray is happy for the chance to spend the summer with her Grandmother in a northern Ontario native community.
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Arilla Sun Down
by Virginia Hamilton
Young girl, half black and half Indian, lives in a small town where her life revolves around family, school, and friends.
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Rain Is Not My Indian Name
by Cynthia Leitich Smith
The next day was my fourteenth birthday, and I'd never kissed a boy -- domestic style or French. Right then, I decided to get myself a teen life. Cassidy Rain Berghoff didn't know that the very night she decided to get a life would be the night that Galen would lose his. It's been six months since her best friend died, and up until now Rain has succeeded in shutting herself off from the world. But when controversy arises around her aunt Georgia's Indian Camp in their mostly white midwestern community, Rain decides to face the outside world again -- at least through the lens of her canera. Hired by her town newspaper to photograph the campers, Rain soon finds that she has to decide how involved She wants to become in Indian Camp. Does she want to keep a professional distance from the intertribal community she belongs to? And just how willing is she to connect with the campers after her great loss? In a voice that resonates with insight and humor, Cynthia Leitich Smith tells of heartbreak, recovery, and reclaiming one's place in the world.
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The Dark Pond
by Joseph Bruchac
As soon as he arrives at the North Mountains School, Armie senses something strange about the dark pond in the forest. An eerie presence haunts his dreams and calls to Armie, begging him to come out and play. But Armie knows this is no game. Whatever lives in the dark pond plays for keeps. In the past, Armie has always turned to the tales of his Shawnee ancestors for help, and this time is no different. He does his research, and when spring break arrives Armie knows this is his chance to discover what lives deep in the still, black waters of the dark pond. But this time, he may need to call upon more than his wits to help him survive ...
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The Girl with a Baby
by Sylvia Olsen
Because of baby Destiny, Jane dares to demand the best, not just of herself, but of her whole family, while holding on to her Aboriginal heritage and heading into the future.
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The Curse of the Royal Ruby
by Rodney Johnson
Lakota teenager Rinnah Two Feathers returns to investigate a bejeweled foreigner's murder and the disappearance of a priceless ruby.
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The Secret of Dead Man's Mine
by Rodney Johnson
Rinnah Two Feathers, a sleuth-minded Lakota Indian in South Dakota, investigates a mysterious stranger poking around a long-abandoned house and stumbles across the secret of Dead Man's Mine.
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Eagle Song
by Joseph Bruchac
After moving from a Mohawk reservation to Brooklyn, New York, eight-year-old Danny Bigtree encounters stereotypes about his Native American heritage.
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Twilight Boy
by Timothy Green
Jesse Begay begins to investigate the strange circumstances surrounding a fire at his Navajo grandfather's hogan, even though the old man remains convinced that a "skinwalker" is haunting him.
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The Window
by Michael Dorris
When ten-year-old Rayona's Native American mother enters a treatment facility, her estranged father, a Black man, finally introduces her to his side of the family, who are not at all what she expected.
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The Secret of the Seal
by Deborah Davis
Ten-year-old Kyo, an Eskimo boy, faces a difficult moral choice between friendship for a seal and loyalty to his family.
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Enchanted Runner
by Kimberley Griffiths Little
Twelve-year-old Kendall, half Anglo and half Acoma, discovers his heritage and his destiny as a runner when he visits his great-grandfather's pueblo and finds a culture he used to hear about from his deceased mother.