Add These Native-Authored Books to Your Summer Reading List

Summer is in full swing and there’s no better time to dig into a good book. From humor to history, memoir to mystery, you’ll find great recommendations on our annual Native Authors Summer Reading List. See the list below or download the PDF to share with your community!

Books for Early Readers

You Are the Land
Steph Littlebird (Grand Ronde Confederated Tribes)
With inspiring words and sweeping illustrations, author-artist Steph Littlebird explores Indigenous culture through a child’s loving relationship with the land that supports and nurtures her as she grows.

To Walk the Sky: How Iroquois Steelworkers Helped Build Towering Cities
Patricia Morris Buckley (Mohawk) and E.B. Lewis (Lenni-Lenape)
Generations of Native workers called skywalkers sculpted city skylines, balancing on narrow beams and facing terrifying heights and heartbreaking loss. This book tells the story of the skywalkers who built a legacy of landmarks all over North America.

Books for Young Adults

Legendary Frybread Drive-in: Intertribal Stories
Edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee Nation)
Featuring the voices of both new and acclaimed Indigenous writers and edited by bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of interconnected stories serves up laughter, love, Native pride and the world’s best frybread.

 Medicine Wheels
Byron Graves (Ojibwe and Lakota)
Award-winning author Byron Graves (Rez Ball) returns with this story of Bryce, a gifted young Ojibwe athlete learning to ride in his father’s footsteps while practicing for a skateboarding championship. When a fresh loss takes Bryce down, he leans on his Ojibwe community for support, discovering his father’s real legacy and the true meaning of unconditional love.

Girl Warrior: A Coming of Age Handbook
Joy Harjo (Muscogee)
In Girl Warrior, National Poet Laureate Joy Harjo speaks directly to Native girls and women about the complexity and joy of becoming a woman today. Informed by her own experiences and those of her ancestors, Harjo offers advice for navigating the many challenges of growing up, from facing mental illness to grappling with parents, friendships, love, and loss. She also guides young readers toward art, poetry, and music as powerful tools for developing their own ethical sensibility.

Adult Fiction

The Bone Thief
Vanessa Lille (Cherokee)
Bestselling author Vanessa Lille (Blood Sisters) is back with another novel that proves the sins of the past are destined to repeat until the truth is finally unearthed. When a Native teenager vanishes from her small town—a place with dark ties to an elite historical society—archaeologist Walker is called to investigate.

Old School Indian
Aaron John Curtis (Saint Regis Mohawk)
In his debut novel, Aaron John Curtis tells a coming-of-middle-age story about an Ahkwesáhsne man’s reluctant return home in search of healing at the hands of his great uncle. Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is an exploration of love, family, culture and history.

Adult Nonfiction

Fighting For The Puyallup Tribe: A Memoir
Ramona Bennett Bill (Puyallup)
Ramona Bennett Bill served ten years as chairwoman of the Puyallup Tribal Council, organizing social welfare, education and enrollment initiatives and championing Native religious freedom. In her memoir, Bennett Bill shares her vivid accounts from more than six decades of battles waged by the Puyallup and other Northwest tribes around fishing and land rights, health, and education.

A Steady Brightness of Being: Truths, Wisdom, and Love from Celebrated Indigenous Voices
Stephanie & Sara Sinclair (Cree-Ojibwa)
Many indigenous voices come together in this anthology to tackle complex questions of our times and provide a rich tapestry of Indigenous life, past, present, and future. Taking its structure from the medicine bundle—tobacco, sage, cedar, and sweetgrass—the collection of writings is intended to stir and empower readers, as well as enrich an essential conversation about what reconciliation looks like and what it means to be Indigenous today.

Thank you to the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Library and Lower Elwha Klallam Library for sharing these recommendations!