TTT: Top Books Featuring Indigenous People/History

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Book Featuring Indigenous People

Today is Indigenous Peoples' Day (used to be Columbus Day) in the U.S. I decided to go off-the-board and create a list of excellent books featuring Indigenous people! (Indigenous tribes in parenthesis)

1-3. The Justice Trilogy by Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe)

    a. The Plague of Doves (2008)

    b. The Round House (2012)

    c. LaRose (2016) 

     I cannot begin to tell you how impactful these books have been to understanding Indigenous people and culture. I sum up each book in the link about the trilogy. 

     I have really enjoyed all of the Erdich's books I've read and recommend them all. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa, an Ojibwe tribe. All her books include at least some Indigenous characters. The Sentence; The Night Watchman; The Mighty Red. 

4. Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi)

A nonfiction book of botanical wisdom and human-nature reciprocity. It is very kind and gentle an makes one feel that they too can become a better person. There is an adult book, too, but I like the YA book better.

5. Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet)

It might be a horror story but it is also a historical account of the heartbreaking story of what happened to the Blackfeet nation when the buffalo hunters came to their land.

6. There There by Tommy Orange (Cheyenne, Arapaho, Lakota, urban Native Americans)

Native Americans come to life in their own chapters but soon we see that they are almost dancing around each other as the circle dance draws closer and closer to the final event, the Big Oakland Powwow. Some of the characters will come to dance in their regalia, others will come to fulfill work commitments, while others will come with mischief in their hearts. Profound. There is a sequel: Wandering Stars.

7. Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Ojibwe)

A teenage girl works undercover for the police on her reservation. It is a mystery but it also includes lots of the tribe's traditions and cultures. The first book of a YA series. I haven't read the other books.

8. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (Osage)

A super interesting account of what happened to the Osage tribe in Oklahoma in the early 1920s. Much better than the movie which was made from it.

9. Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee, Cree, Apache, Tuscarora, Navajo, Native Hawaiian, Choctaw, Aleut/Alutiiq, and more.)

Short stories by a variety of Indigenous authors. Native teens all receive the help they need when they arrive (often magically) at the Legendary Frybread Drive-In.

10. Apple (Skin to the Core): a Memoir by Eric Gansworth (Onondaga)

A memoir written by an Indigenous author and artist. The book is written in verse and is about his life as an outsider. He is a member of one tribe but lived on a reservation for another tribe (Tuscarora). The term "Apple" is a slam to a Native person. It means red on the outside but white on the inside.

11. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: a Memoir by Sherman Alexie (Spokane)

If you haven't read any Alexie, I suggest you start with his much-awarded, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a semi-autobiographical/fictional account of a young Indian growing up on the Wellpinit Reservation (Spokane tribe) in Washington state, but going to school off the Rez...making him a part-time Indian in both places. Then read or listen to this book You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: a Memoir and the picture of his life will be filled in.

12. Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Lakota Nation/ Rosebud Sioux tribe) 

A mystery set on the Rosebud Sioux reservation of South Dakota. Winter counts refers to a traditional Lakota pictorial calendar system.

13. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Mi’kmaq, mainly found in Northeastern Canada)

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl is kidnapped when her family is picking berries in Maine. What her absence does to the family is the focus of the story. Profound. First book in a series.

14. Poet Warrior: a Memoir by Joy Harjo (Muscogee)

Harjo is the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. This is her story.

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Books I'd like to read by Indigenous authors:

• Bad Indians Book Club by Patty Krawec (Anishinaabe)
• The Door on the Sea by Caskey Russell (Tlingit)
• If the Dead Belong Here by Carson Faust (Edisto Natchez-Kusso)
• To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage (Cherokee)
• Whereas: Poems by Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Sioux)
• The Tao of Raven: A Native Alaskan Memoir by Ernestine Hayes (Tlingit)

-Anne