The Blue Roses by Linda Boyden.
Raised by her grandfather, a Native American girl learns about life and
loss when her grandfather dies and then begins to speak to her in her
dreams.
First Salmon by Roxane Salonen.
Every spring the pacific northwestern Native Americans celebrate First
Salmon. This spring Charlie is having a hard time celebrating as he
remembers his late Uncle Joe.
The
Good Luck Cat by Joy Harjo.
A young Native American girl worries when her good luck cat Woogie, who
has already used up eight of his nine lives, suddenly disappears.
Mystic
Horse by Paul Goble.
After taking in and caring for an old abandoned horse, a young Pawnee
boy receives a reward for his good deed.
Sky Dancers by Connie Ann Kirk.
Living in upstate New York, John Cloud, a Mohawk child, goes to visit
his father who is working as a "sky dancer" on the Empire State Building.
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich.
Omakayas is a seven-year-old Ojibwa girl living on Lake Superior whose
life, centered around family and tradition, soon changes
with the arrival of white settlers. Also by Erdrich: The
Game of Silence.
Hidden Roots by Joseph Bruchac.
An eleven-year-old boy with a violent father befriends the town librarian,
learns about Abenaki traditions and discovers the truth about his family.
Indian Shoes by Cynthia Leitich Smith.
Ray and Grampa Halfmoon live in Chicago but fondly recall their Cherokee-Seminole
heritage.
Sky by Pamela Porter.
A fictionalized story based on true events chronicling Georgia and her
grandparents' survival of the 1964 flood on the Blackfeet reservation
in northern Montana.
The Star People: A Lakota Story by S.D. Nelson.
Sister Girl and Young Wolf find themselves lost after escaping a prairie
fire, but are guided back home by the spirit of their grandmother and
the Star People.
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen.
Cole’s violence against a classmate results in his being sentenced,
via Circle Justice, to an uninhabited Alaskan island. Cole attempts escape,
but encounters the Spirit Bear that changes his life forever.
Whisper in the Dark by Joseph Bruchac.
A teenage girl, one of the last living descendents of a great Narragansett
chief, believes a legendary monster known as the Whisperer in the
Dark has come for her.
The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill.
Told in nine-year-old Fred's simple, honest voice, this is a story about
Alaska, about the old ways and the new, and about a special teacher
who touches the lives of everyone she meets.
Customs,
Cultures & Celebrations
Children
of Native America Today by
Yvonne Wakim Dennis and Arlene Hirschfelder.
Color photographs are included in this introduction to traditions,
activities, and lifestyles of children from various North American tribes
including two Wisconsin tribes.
Jingle Dancer by
Cynthia Leitich Smith. Illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa
Hu.
Jenna, a member of the Muscogee, or Creek Nation, borrows jingles from
the dresses of several friends and relatives so that she can perform
the jingle dance at the powwow.
Powwow: A Good Day to Dance by Jacqueline Dembar Greene.
The author follows the activities of a young boy as his family attends
a Wampanoag powwow, describing the significance of some of the dances
and events at the gathering.
Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac.
After her parents disappear and she is turned over to the care of a
strange “great-uncle,” Molly must rely on her dreams about
an old Mohawk story for her safety and maybe even her life.
How Chipmunk Got His Stripes: A Tale of Bragging
and Teasing as told by Joseph Bruchac and James Bruchac.
When Bear and Brown Squirrel have a disagreement about whether Bear can
stop the sun from rising, Brown Squirrel ends up with claw marks on his
back and becomes Chipmunk, the striped one.
Crazy Horse's Vision by Joseph Bruchac.
Crazy Horse’s Vision is based on the life of the brave young Lakota
child who grew up to become a defender of his people.
Geronimo by Joseph Bruchac.
After Geronimo surrenders he is moved from camp to camp, treated
like a prisoner of war, and is forbidden to return to his homeland.
Smiler’s
Bones by Peter Lerangis.
Based on actual events in 1897, this fictional story tells what happened
to six Eskimos that Artic explorer Robert Peary brought back for a living
exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Historical
Fact
A Braid of Lives: Native American Childhoodby
Neil Philip.
Here is an inside look into childhood and growing up as a Native American
as told through testimonies and stories.
Buffalo: With Selections From Native American
Song-poems by Beverly Brodsky.
This book presents readers with tribal song-poems and paintings that
are used to express the buffalo’s essential and sacred role on
the Great Plains.
The Ghost Dance by Alice McLerran.
The Native American ghost dance origins and meaning are presented in
this narrative text. Through the eyes of children living on the Rosebud
Sioux reservation in South Dakota, learn about the history, culture
and beliefs of the Lakota Indians
Jim
Thorpe’s Bright Path by Joseph Bruchac.
A biography about Olympic gold medal winner Jim Thorpe with an inside
look at his boyhood education and how it set the stage for his
athletic achievements.
Longhouse by Cynthia Breslin Beres.
Discribes the way of life of tribes from the League of the Iroquois,
who took pride in their longhouses, unique dwellings that they
built for homes and ceremonies.
Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac.
Pocahontas and John Smith give readers their side
of the story as they dealt with encounters between the Powhatan Indians
and the English colonists of the 17th century.
The Powhatan: A Confederacy of Native American Tribes by Tracey
Boraas.
Discover the lives of the Powhatan people and trace their customs, history,
culture, family life and relations with the United States' government.
Pushing Up the Sky: Seven Native American Plays for Children by
Joseph Bruchac.
Pushing Up the Sky uses drama to tell seven different stories originally
told in Native American tribes including the Abenaki, Ojibway, Cherokee,
Cheyenne, Snohomish, Tlingit, and Zuni.
The Sioux by Gwen Remington.
This historical overview, from prehistoric times to present day, provides
an introduction to the customs, religion and traditions of the Sioux,
also known as the Dakota.
We Are the Many: A Picture Book of American Indians by Doreen
Rappaport.
This collection of short, illustrated biographies introduces readers
to distinguished Native Americans from several nations and their contributions
to the world.
Alice Yazzie's Year by Ramona Maher.
A book of verse describes each month of the year in Alice Yazzie’s
life on the Navajo reservation.
The Dark Pond by Joseph Bruchac.
Armie, an outsider who communicates better with animals than with people,
is drawn to something evil in the pond near his school.
The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish by Jacqueline
Briggs Martin.
In 1913 a research boat named Fish became trapped in the ice
on an Arctic expedition. The scientists, crew and some Inupaiq people
on board the ship survived using Inupiaq cultural traditions.
1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving by
Catherine O'Neill Grace and Margaret M. Bruchac.
This photographic recreation of the harvest celebration
by Plymouth Plantation and the Wampanoag community describes the actual
three-day event and exposes the myths surrounding the celebration.