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Native American Heritage Month is observed in November to call attention to the culture, traditions, and achievements of our nation’s original inhabitants and their descendants. Check out one of these books by an Indigenous author to honor and celebrate their heritage.

 

KIDS

 

When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast by Andrea L. Rogers

As the dirt warms and green sprouts poke up, a Cherokee girl joins her family in the hunt for green onions. Together, they pick enough to bring to a feast, which is cooked with love and shared by their community. Written with simple, sensory lyricism and featuring warm, vibrant art, this picture book celebrates the spring tradition of wild onion dinners—and the community and comfort that are shared when we gather.

 

Indigenous Ingenuity: A Celebration of Traditional North American Knowledge by Deidre Havrelock and Edward Kay

Corn. Chocolate. Fishing hooks. Boats that float. Insulated double-walled construction. Recorded history and folklore. Life-saving disinfectant. Forest fire management. Our lives would be unrecognizable without these and countless other scientific discoveries and technological inventions from Indigenous North Americans. Spanning topics from transportation to civil engineering, hunting technologies, astronomy, brain surgery, architecture, and agriculture, Indigenous Ingenuity includes fun, simple activities and experiments that kids can do to better understand and enjoy the principles used by Indigenous inventors. 

 

TEENS

 

Apple: (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth

The term “apple” is a slur in Native communities across the country. It’s for someone supposedly “red on the outside, white on the inside.” The author tells the story of his life and family, as well as the story of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds, Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

 

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium, all her life. Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. 

 

ADULTS

 

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

From the New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, this is a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community based on the lessons of the natural world. 

 

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel

Six women—mothers, daughters, sisters—gone missing. When the first is found floating dead in the river, it reveals the disturbing truth of a small Ohio town. Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, this harrowing and haunting novel tells the story of two sisters, both of whom could be the next victims.

 

Jen Pace Dickenson is the Youth Services Librarian for Polk County Public Libraries. For information about the library’s resources, programs, and other services, visit polklibrary.org or call (828) 894-8721.