November Reading Recommendations: Native American Heritage Month
Jaliyah Suggs, Library Research Assistant | jaliyah.suggs@usu.edu
November is Native American Heritage Month! Take a look at our curated list of reading recommendations that honors Native American heritage and culture!
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
A god will return. When the earth and sky converge, under the black sun. In the holy city of Tova the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as “harmless” the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Rez Ball by Byron Graves
These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team--even though he can't help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon's former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his dream of playing in the NBA, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him. But stepping into his brother's shoes as a star player means that Tre can't mess up. Not on the court, not at school, and not with his new friend, gamer Khiana, who he is definitely not falling in love with. After decades of rez teams almost making it, Tre needs to take his team to state. Because if he can live up to Jaxon's dreams, their story isn't over yet.
One Voice Rising: The Life of Clifford Duncan by Clifford Duncan with Linda Sillitoe
One Voice Rising is a memoir by a Ute healer, historian, and elder as told to Anglo writer, Linda Sillitoe. Clifford Duncan (1933-2014) was a tribal official and medicine man, a museum director, a trained lay archaeologist, an artist, a U.S. army veteran, and a leader in the Native American Church. In this text Duncan covers personal and tribal history during a crucial period in the tribe's development. His discussions with Sillitoe offer a unique look at individual and societal issues, including the Native American Church, powwows and tribal celebrations, and interactions with the larger world. George Janecek's intimate photographs of Clifford Duncan and his world expand the impact of Duncan's words.
Mankiller: A Chief and Her People by Wilma Mankiller and Michael Wallis
In this spiritual, moving autobiography, Wilma Mankiller, former Chief of the Cherokee Nation and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, tells of her own history while also honoring and recounting the history of the Cherokees. Mankiller's life unfolds against the backdrop of the dawning of the American Indian civil rights struggle, and her book becomes a quest to reclaim and preserve the great Native American values that form the foundation of our nation. Now featuring a new Afterword to the 2000 paperback reissue, this edition of Mankiller completely updates the author's private and public life after 1994 and explores the recent political struggles of the Cherokee Nation.
Earth Keeper by Scott N. Momaday
A story of attachment, rooted in oral tradition. Momaday recalls stories of his childhood that have been passed down through generations, stories that reveal a profound and sacred connection to the American landscape and a reverence for the natural world. In this moving work, he offers an homage and a warning. Momaday reminds us that the Earth is a sacred place of wonder and beauty; a source of strength and healing that must be protected before it's too late. As he so eloquently yet simply reminds us, we must all be keepers of the Earth.
The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories by Stacie Shannon Denetsosie*
Stacie Shannon Denetsosie confronts long-reaching effects of settler-colonialism on Native lives in a series of gritty, wildly imaginative stories. A young Navajo man catches a ride home alongside a casket he's sure contains his dead grandfather. A gas station clerk witnesses the kidnapping of the newly crowned Miss Northwestern Arizona. A young couple's search for a sperm donor raises questions of blood quantum. This debut collection grapples with a complex and painful history alongside an inheritance of beauty, ceremony, and storytelling.
*USU Author
The Beadworkers by Beth Piatote
In this eloquent and elucidating debut story collection [Piatote] brings the Native experience to life—from the long line of broken treaties and the tragic effect on Native tribes from coast to coast to contemporary repercussions from forced attendance at Indian boarding schools.
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen
Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language we use to speak about violence in America. In prose at once forensic and deeply emotional, Toni Jensen shows herself to be a brave new voice and a fearless witness to her own difficult history--as well as to the violent cultural landscape in which she finds her coordinates. With each chapter, Carry reminds us that surviving in one's country is not the same as surviving one's country.
Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light: A Playby Joy Harjo and a Circle of Responses
A centerpiece of this collection that includes essays and interviews concerning the roots and the reaches of contemporary Native Theater. Harjo blends storytelling, music, movement, and poetic language. A healing ceremony that chronicles the challenges young protagonist Redbird faces on her path to healing and self-determination.
An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle Y. Mays
Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present.