Must-Read Middle-Grade Books to Celebrate Native American Heritage
Explore Native American Heritage: Must-Read Middle-Grade Books
November marks the beginning of Native American Heritage Month, and what better way to honor and celebrate this rich cultural heritage than by delving into a captivating selection of middle-grade books written by Native authors? In this curated list, we’ve gathered exceptional titles that encompass both historical narratives and contemporary tales, offering readers a diverse and authentic perspective on Native American experiences.
Representation holds a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of Indigenous cultures. Unfortunately, many non-Native individuals, including children and adults, often encounter limited, stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans in stories tied to Thanksgiving and historical accounts, often told from a non-Indigenous perspective. It’s time to embrace a more holistic view by immersing ourselves in narratives crafted by Native voices. From tales of the past to stories of the present, these books provide an opportunity to learn, empathize, and celebrate the vibrant Native American cultures that enrich our world.
Before we embark on this literary journey, we encourage you to take a moment to pin this post to your reading or books board, ensuring you can easily revisit these inspiring titles and share them with fellow book lovers.
Discover Native American Heritage Through Engaging Middle-Grade Books
Diving into the captivating world of Native American middle-grade books offers a multitude of rewards beyond literary enjoyment. These titles not only provide engaging stories but also foster a deeper connection to and appreciation of Native American culture and heritage. Here are some key benefits to consider:
- Cultural Enrichment: Reading Native American literature allows readers to immerse themselves in the rich tapestry of Indigenous traditions, customs, and histories. It offers an authentic glimpse into the lives and experiences of Native American people, dispelling stereotypes and misconceptions.
- Empathy and Understanding: These books can help readers develop empathy and a greater understanding of the challenges, triumphs, and everyday lives of Native American individuals and communities. By walking in the shoes of Native characters, readers gain insights into their perspectives and struggles.
- Diverse Perspectives: Native American middle-grade books encompass a wide range of themes, from historical events to contemporary issues. They showcase the diversity within Native American cultures and highlight the unique stories of different tribes and regions.
- Educational Value: Reading these books is a valuable educational experience for readers of all ages, fostering an appreciation for history, culture, and language. It’s a fantastic resource for educators, parents, and children to learn together.
- Promoting Authentic Voices: By choosing books written by Native authors, you support and amplify authentic Indigenous voices. This helps ensure that stories about Native American heritage are told from within the community, promoting cultural preservation and accuracy.
- Inspiring Future Generations: These stories can inspire young readers to explore their heritage, culture, and history. They may encourage the next generation of storytellers and advocates for Indigenous rights.
- Building Solidarity: Engaging with Native American literature demonstrates solidarity and respect for Indigenous communities. It encourages conversations about diversity, equality, and preserving and celebrating cultural traditions.
As you embark on your journey through these middle-grade books, keep these benefits in mind. Not only will you be entertained by captivating narratives, but you’ll also gain a deeper appreciation for Native American heritage and contribute to promoting authentic voices and cultural understanding. It’s an enriching experience that can positively impact your perspective on the world.
The PeaceMaker
written by Joseph Bruchac
Twelve-year-old Okwaho’s life has suddenly changed. While he and his best friend are out hunting, his friend is kidnapped by men from a neighboring tribal nation, and Okwaho barely escapes. Everyone in his village fears more raids and killings: The Five Nations of the Iroquois have been at war with one another for far too long, and no one can remember what it was like to live in peace.
Okwaho is so angry that he wants to seek revenge for his friend, but before he can retaliate, a visitor with a message of peace comes to him in the woods. The Peacemaker shares his lesson tales—stories that make Okwaho believe that this man can convince the leaders of the five fighting nations to set down their weapons. So many others agree with him. Can all of them come together to form the Iroquois Great League of Peace?
The Second Chance of Benjamin Waterfalls
written by James Bird
Benjamin Waterfalls comes from a broken home, and the quickest fix he’s found for his life is to fill that emptiness with stuff he steals and then sells. But he’s been caught one too many times, and when he appears before a tough judge, his mother proposes sending him to “boot camp” at the Ojibwe reservation where they used to live.
Soon he is on his way to Grand Portage, Minnesota, to live with his father – the man Benny hasn’t seen in years. Not only is “boot camp” not what he expects, but his rehabilitation seems to be in the hands of the tribal leader’s daughter, who wears a mask. Why? Finding the answer to this and so many other questions prove tougher than any military-style boot camp. Will answers be enough for Benny to turn his life around and embrace his second chance?
Children of the Longhouse
written by Joseph Bruchac
When Ohkwa’ri overhears a group of older boys planning a raid on a neighboring village, he immediately tells his Mohawk elders. He has done the right thing—but he has also made enemies. Grabber and his friends will do anything they can to hurt him, especially during the village-wide game of Tekwaarathon (lacrosse). Ohkwa’ri believes in the path of peace, but can peaceful ways work against Grabber’s wrath?
Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids
edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In a high school gym full of color and song, people dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship and heritage. Young protagonists will meet relatives from faraway, mysterious strangers, and sometimes one another (plus one scrappy rez dog).
They are the heroes of their own stories.
Featuring stories and poems by:
Joseph Bruchac
Art Coulson
Christine Day
Eric Gansworth
Carole Lindstrom
Dawn Quigley
Rebecca Roanhorse
David A. Robertson
Andrea L. Rogers
Kim Rogers
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Monique Gray Smith
Traci Sorell,
Tim Tingle
Erika T. Wurth
Brian Young
Rez Dogs
written by Joseph Bruchac
Malian loves spending time with her grandparents at their home on a Wabanaki reservation. She’s there for a visit when, suddenly, all travel shuts down. There’s a new virus making people sick, and Malian will have to stay with her grandparents for the duration.
Everyone is worried about the pandemic, but Malian knows how to keep her family and community safe: She protects her grandparents, and they protect her. She doesn’t go outside to play with friends, she helps her grandparents use video chat, and she listens to and learns from their stories. And when Malsum, one of the dogs living on the rez, shows up at their door, Malian’s family knows that he’ll protect them too.
Told in verse inspired by oral storytelling, this novel about the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the ways Malian’s community has cared for one another through plagues of the past, and how they keep caring for one another today.
Indigenous America (True History
written by Liam McDonald
American schoolchildren have long been taught that their country was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But the history of Native Americans in the United States goes back tens of tens of thousands of years prior to Columbus’s and other colonizers’ arrivals. So, what’s the true history?
Complete with an 8-page color photo insert, Indigenous America introduces and amplifies the oral and written histories that have long been left out of American history books.
Two Roads
written by Joseph Bruchac
It’s 1932, and twelve-year-old Cal Black and his Pop have been riding the rails for years after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Cal likes being a “knight of the road” with Pop, even if they’re broke. But then Pop has to go to Washington, DC–some of his fellow veterans are marching for their government checks, and Pop wants to make sure he gets his due–and Cal can’t go with him. So Pop tells Cal something he never knew before: Pop is actually a Creek Indian, which means Cal is too. And Pop has decided to send Cal to a government boarding school for Native Americans in Oklahoma called the Challagi School.
At school, the other Creek boys quickly take Cal under their wings. Even in the harsh, miserable conditions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, he begins to learn about his people’s history and heritage. He learns their language and customs. And most of all, he learns how to find strength in a group of friends who have nothing beyond each other.
The Barren Grounds
written by David A. Robertson
Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home — until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything — including them.
Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
written by David Grann
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, thanks to the oil that was discovered beneath their land. Then, one by one, the Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances, and anyone who tried to investigate met the same end.
As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. An undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau, infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection to bring an end to the deadly crime spree. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
In this youngification of the adult bestseller, David Grann revisits the gripping investigation into the shocking crimes against the Osage people. It is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to continue for so long and provides essential information for young readers about a shameful period in our history.
Healer of the Water Monster
written by Brian Young
When Nathan goes to visit his grandma, Nali, at her mobile summer home on the Navajo reservation, he knows he’s in for a pretty uneventful summer, with no electricity or cell service. Still, he loves spending time with Nali and with his uncle Jet, though it’s clear when Jet arrives that he brings his problems with him.
One night, while lost in the nearby desert, Nathan finds someone extraordinary: a Holy Being from the Navajo Creation Story—a Water Monster—in need of help.
Now Nathan must summon all his courage to save his new friend. With the help of other Navajo Holy Beings, Nathan is determined to save the Water Monster, and to support Uncle Jet in healing from his own pain.
The Birchbark House
written by Louise Erdrich
This first book takes place on an island in Lake Superior in 1847 where 7-year-old Omakayas, “Little Frog” and her Ojibwa family live. Erdrich describes the daily life and experiences of the Ojibwa as well as their sorrows and joys. Excellent, and a must read for kids.
Indian Shoes
written 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 teamed up to pet sit for the whole block during a holiday blizzard!
In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse
written by Joseph Marchall III
Jimmy McClean is a Lakota boy, though you wouldn’t guess it by his name. His mother is Lakota, and his father is half white and half Lakota. Over summer break, Jimmy embarks on a journey with his grandfather, Nyles High Eagle. While on the road, his grandfather tells him the story of Crazy Horse, one of the most important figures in Lakota, and American, history.
Expertly intertwining fiction and nonfiction, celebrated Brulé Lakota author Joseph Marshall III chronicles the many heroic deeds of Crazy Horse, especially his taking up arms against the U.S. government. He fiercely fought against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party to victory at the Battle of the Greasy Grass (the Battle of the Little Bighorn) and playing a major and dangerous role as decoy at the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands (the Fetterman Battle). With Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse was the last of the Lakota to surrender his people to the U.S. Army. Through his grandfather’s tales about the famous warrior, Jimmy learns about his Lakota heritage and, ultimately, himself.
Rain is not my Indian Name
written by Cynthia Leitich Smith
It’s been six months since Cassidy Rain Berghoff’s best friend, Galen, died, and up until now she has succeeded in shutting herself off from the world. But when controversy arises around Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp in their mostly white midwestern community, Rain decides to face the outside world again, with a new job photographing the campers for her town’s newspaper.
Soon, Rain has to decide how involved she wants to become in Indian Camp. Does she want to keep a professional distance from her fellow Native teens? And, though she is still grieving, will she be able to embrace new friends and new beginnings?
I Can Make this Promise
written by Christine Day
All her life, Edie has known that her mom was adopted by a white couple. So, no matter how curious she might be about her Native American heritage, Edie is sure her family doesn’t have any answers.
Until the day when she and her friends discover a box hidden in the attic—a box full of letters signed “Love, Edith,” and photos of a woman who looks just like her.
Suddenly, Edie has a flurry of new questions about this woman who shares her name. Could she belong to the Native family that Edie never knew about? But if her mom and dad have kept this secret from her all her life, how can she trust them to tell her the truth now?
Indian No MOre
written by Charlene Willing McManis with Traci Sorell
Regina Petit’s family has always been Umpqua, and living on the Grand Ronde reservation is all ten-year-old Regina has ever known. Her biggest worry is that Sasquatch may actually exist out in the forest. But when the federal government signs a bill into law that says Regina’s tribe no longer exists, Regina becomes “Indian no more” overnight–even though she was given a number by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that counted her as Indian, even though she lives with her tribe and practices tribal customs, and even though her ancestors were Indian for countless generations.
With no good jobs available in Oregon, Regina’s father signs the family up for the Indian Relocation program and moves them to Los Angeles. Regina finds a whole new world in her neighborhood on 58th Place. She’s never met kids of other races, and they’ve never met a real Indian. For the first time in her life, Regina comes face to face with the viciousness of racism, personally and toward her new friends.
Meanwhile, her father believes that if he works hard, their family will be treated just like white Americans. But it’s not that easy. It’s 1957 during the Civil Rights Era. The family struggles without their tribal community and land. At least Regina has her grandmother, Chich, and her stories. At least they are all together.
Apple in the Middle
written by Dawn Quigley
Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descent, not that she really even knew how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesnt accept her either. And so begins her quirky habits to gain acceptance.
Apple’s name, chosen by her Indian mother on her deathbed, has a double meaning: treasured apple of my eye, but also the negative connotation a person who is red, or Indian, on the outside, but white on the inside.
After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in northern North Dakota for the first time. Apple learns to deal with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while she tries to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man who loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man.
Bouncing in the middle of two cultures, Apple meets her Indian relatives, shatters Indian stereotypes, and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color.
My Name is Seepeetza
written by Shirley Sterling
Her name was Seepeetza when she was at home with her family. But now that she’s living at the Indian residential school her name is Martha Stone, and everything else about her life has changed as well. Told in the honest voice of a sixth grader, this is the story of a young Native girl forced to live in a world governed by strict nuns, arbitrary rules, and a policy against talking in her own dialect, even with her family. Seepeetza finds bright spots, but most of all she looks forward to summers and holidays at home.
Eagle Song
written by Joseph Bruchac
Danny Bigtree’s family has moved to Brooklyn, New York, and he just can’t seem to fit in at school. He’s homesick for the Mohawk reservation, and the kids in his class tease him about being an Indian—the thing that makes Danny most proud. Can he find the courage to stand up for himself?
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Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with Unforgettable Middle-Grade Books
As we conclude our journey through Native American Heritage Month, these middle-grade books provide a valuable and captivating means to celebrate the vibrant cultures and histories of Native Americans. From enlightening historical accounts to contemporary tales that resonate with today’s youth, these stories offer a rich tapestry of experiences and perspectives.
But our exploration doesn’t end here. For younger readers, we’ve also curated a list of fantastic picture books that introduce the beauty and diversity of Native American cultures to kids. And for those hungry for more literary adventures, we invite you to explore our ever-expanding collection of Native American Heritage Middle-Grade Books on our Amazon storefront. We’re dedicated to bringing you the latest and most compelling titles that shed light on the fascinating world of Native American heritage.
This Native American Heritage Month, let’s continue to celebrate, learn, and grow by embracing these stories and sharing them with friends and family. Reading these books isn’t just about honoring the past; it’s about building bridges to a more inclusive and understanding future. We hope these books enrich your reading journey and inspire you to seek more diverse perspectives in your literary explorations. Happy reading!
