First Nations fiction (YA and other)
Explore captivating First Nations fiction with our curated list of YA and other books. Discover powerful stories, diverse voices, and rich cultural narratives from Indigenous authors.
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Sweetgrass
by Janis Reams Hudson
Can the whole tribe depend on her? Award-winning author Jan Hudson tells the enchanting story of a young Blackfoot girl caught up in the sweep of Western Canadian history. Being the oldest unmarried girl in her Blackfoot tribe is misery for fifteen-year-old Sweetgrass, but her father feels she’s not ready for the hard work and responsibility that come with being an Indian wife. Then, during the cold prairie winter, a smallpox epidemic breaks out. With the men away at war, Sweetgrass is one of the few women left to fight for the survival of her tribe. This is her chance to prove her maturity, but is she strong enough to fight the cold, hunger, and disease? “In a colorful, lyrical style evoking all the sense, Sweetgrass tells, with strength and tenderness, a dramatic story.”—Kirkus Reviews (pointer review) An ALA Notable Book, Booklist Editors’ Choice, and winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award.
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The Primrose Way
by Jackie French Koller
Sixteen-year-old Rebekah joins her missionary father in the New World in the 1630s and, after being introduced to Indian culture, begins to question whether these "savages" need saving after all
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Anpao
by Jamake Highwater
Anpao is young and Handsome and Brave -- a man any maiden would be proud to call her husband. Any maiden but Ko-Ko-Mik-e-is, that is, who calims she belongs to the Sun alone. And so Anpao sets off for the house of the Sun to ask permission to marry the woman he loves. But Anpao's journey is not an easy one. Before he can reach the Sun, Anapao must travel back in time to the dawn of the world. He must relive his own creation, venture through The World Beneath the World, and battle the many magical mystical creatures of Native American legends. For only by doing so can Anpao discover who he really is, and rove to the Sun why he alone is worthy of the fair Ko-komik-e-is
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Jingle Dancer
by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Jenna, a contemporary Muscogee (Creek) girl in Oklahoma, wants to honor a family tradition by jingle dancing at the next powwow. But where will she find enough jingles for her dress? An unusual, warm family story, beautifully evoked in Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu's watercolor art. Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 2001, National Council for SS & Child. Book Council
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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 Birchbark House
by Louise Erdrich
"[In this] story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, living on an island in Lake Superior around 1847, Louise Erdrich is reversing the narrative perspective used in most children's stories about nineteenth-century Native Americans. Instead of looking out at 'them' as dangers or curiosities, Erdrich, drawing on her family's history, wants to tell about 'us', from the inside. The Birchbark House establishes its own ground, in the vicinity of Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House' books." --The New York Times Book Review
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
by Sherman Alexie
In his darkly comic short story collection, the author brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation.