Celebrate National Native American Heritage Month in your school or library! Keep reading to find more book recommendations, download resources for your classroom—including guides for Warrior Girl Unearthed and Eagle Drums—and inspire your students to take the pledge to be water protectors, like Indigenous Rights activists Josephine Mandamin and Autumn Peltier in Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior!
From New York Times bestselling picture book author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Bridget George comes Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior, an inspiring picture book biography about two Indigenous Rights Activists, Josephine Mandamin and Autumn Peltier that will energize young readers to join the tidal wave of change.
In the spirit of this stunning book, we want YOU to take the Water Protector’s Pledge!
Download the Pledge Sheet to take the pledge. Then let everyone know that you took the pledge by sharing the “I Took the Pledge!” graphic. Simply add your photo above “I AM A WATER PROTECTOR” and share on social media! Don’t forget to use the hashtag #WeAreWaterProtectors and tag us on Twitter at @MacKidsSL!
Looking for an interactive way to take the pledge with students? Download the Activity Kit to learn how you can help protect the water and environment.
Watch author Angeline Boulley discuss her inspiration, storytelling, and research process for her bestselling debut novel Firekeeper’s Daughter. Plus, educator Kit Robinson shares how teachers can use Firekeeper’s Daughter in the classroom.
Find Ojibwe language translations, correct spellings, and audio pronunciations for Firekeeper’s Daughter in this Anishinaabemowin resource center, created by Margaret Noodin, a professor at UW-Milwaukee.
An instant New York Times bestseller, Angeline Boulley’s debut novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter, is a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, perfect for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange.
Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.
Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.
Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.
Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.
Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
An instant New York Times bestseller!
From Angeline Boulley, the New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter, comes Warrior Girl Unearthed, a thrilling YA mystery about a Native teen who must find a way to bring an ancestor home to her tribe.
Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep.
Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.
But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.
Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right – for the ancestors and for their community.
Coming Soon!
Saints of the Household by Ari Tison
On Sale 1/17/2023
Saints of the Household is a haunting contemporary YA about an act of violence in a small-town–beautifully told by a debut Indigenous Costa Rican-American writer–that will take your breath away.
Max and Jay have always depended on one another for their survival. Growing up with a physically abusive father, the two Bribri American brothers have learned that the only way to protect themselves and their mother is to stick to a schedule and keep their heads down.
But when they hear a classmate in trouble in the woods, instinct takes over and they intervene, breaking up a fight and beating their high school’s star soccer player to a pulp. This act of violence threatens the brothers’ dreams for the future and their beliefs about who they are. As the true details of that fateful afternoon unfold over the course of the novel, Max and Jay grapple with the weight of their actions, their shifting relationship as brothers, and the realization that they may be more like their father than they thought. They’ll have to reach back to their Bribri roots to find their way forward.
Told in alternating points of view using vignettes and poems, debut author Ari Tison crafts an emotional, slow-burning drama about brotherhood, abuse, recovery, and doing the right thing.
Told in lively and powerful verse by debut author Kevin Noble Maillard, Fry Bread is an evocative depiction of a modern Native American family, vibrantly illustrated by Pura Belpre Award winner and Caldecott Honoree Juana Martinez-Neal.
Fry bread is food.
It is warm and delicious, piled high on a plate.
Fry bread is time.
It brings families together for meals and new memories.
Fry bread is nation.
It is shared by many, from coast to coast and beyond.
Fry bread is us.
It is a celebration of old and new, traditional and modern, similarity and difference.
Watch author Kevin Mallard’s read-a-loud of Fry Bread, the Sibert Award winning picture book about a Native American family.