By Cassie V.
To celebrate Native American Indian Heritage Month, we’ve compiled a list of five great young-adult books whose protagonists are shaping how teens see identity create their futures.
The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian (Sep 2007)
By: Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
If I ever get out of here (Jul 2013)
By: Eric L. Gansworth
Seventh-grader Lewis “Shoe” Blake from the Tuscarora Reservation has a new friend, George Haddonfield from the local Air Force base, but in 1975 upstate New York there is a lot of tension and hatred between Native Americans and whites–and Lewis is not sure that he can rely on friendship.
Caleb’s Crossing (May 2011)
By: Geraldine Brooks
Growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans, Bethia Mayfield yearns for an education that is closed to her due to her gender. As soon as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observes its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other.
Code Talker (2005)
By Joseph Bruchac
After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue.
Touching Spirit Bear (2001)
By: Ben Mikaelsen
After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.
Cassie V. is a Youth Services Librarian at CADL Downtown Lansing. She compiled this list for the blog. Please log on to http://bit.ly/1RyD6Jp.Do you have other books to add to this list? Mention them in the comments when you log on.
