Native American Authors: Youth Chapter Books & Graphic Novels (SCPL-YS)

Edited by award-winning and bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride.

Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. For as long as Omakayas can remember, she and her family have lived on the land her people call the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. Although the chimookoman, white people, encroach more and more on their land, life continues much as it always has. Every summer the family builds...

Collin can't help himself--he has a unique condition that leads him to count every letter spoken to him. It's a quirk that makes him a prime target for bullies and a continual frustration to the adults around him, including his father. When Collin is asked to leave yet another school, his dad decides to send him to live in Minnesota with the mother he's never met. She is Ojibwe and lives on a reservation. Collin arrives in Duluth with his loyal dog,...

"In Dog Tracks, Ruby Slipperjack writes the story of those who return to the reserve and rediscover their culture. The book is both a celebration of Abby's youthful determination and a series of teachings about Anishinawbe traditions, history, and culture. Woven into Abby's narrative of self-discovery, and perhaps integral to it, are the teachings of Elders and parents, knowledge of hunting, fishing, berry-picking, and living on and with the land...

"Winter approaches, and there's much to do if Piŋa's family wants to be prepared: hunting, fishing, gathering, and more. Now, Piŋa must travel up the mountain to collect obsidian for knapping - the same mountain where his two older brothers disappeared. As he leaves, Piŋa reassures his parents that he will not succumb to the same fate as his brothers. He will return. But when he reaches the mountaintop, he is confronted by a terrifying eagle god...

A Choctaw boy tells the story of his tribe's removal from the only land its people had ever known, and how their journey to Oklahoma led him to become a ghost--one with the ability to help those he left behind.

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.

When Regina's Umpqua tribe is legally terminated and her family must relocate from Oregon to Los Angeles, she goes on a quest to understand her identity as an Indian despite being so far from home.

"Molly's father grew up on the Mohawk Reserve of Akwesasne, where he learned the best scary stories. One of her favorites was the legend of Skeleton Man, a gruesome tale about a man with a deadly, insatiable hunger. But ever since her parents mysteriously vanished, those spooky tales have started to feel all too real. And things go from bad to worse for Molly when a stranger shows up one day and claims to be her great-uncle. A ghostly thin man she's...

"Maggie Lou’s grandpa doesn’t call her Firefox for nothing. She’s always finding ways to make life more interesting - even if this means getting into big trouble. When her grandfather Mushom finally agrees to teach her how to box, she decides that the rank odors, endless drills and teasing won’t stop her from wearing a tutu to the gym. Joining her father’s construction crew uncovers a surprising talent - besides learning how to use a broom...