Indigenous People
Recommended books at the Main Street Library.
Cities and states across the United States celebrated Indigenous Peoples' Day this week, but exploring the work of Native authors doesn't have to be just one day a year. Check out this book list for some great reads!
Titles available from the library's physical collection. Click here for information on borrowing procedures during the Covid 19 crisis.
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Everything You Know about Indians is WrongAuthor: Paul Chaat Smith
Smith mixes wide-ranging social, political, and cultural commentary with recollections of his own life, including time spent with the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, to comment on the past and present of Indigenous peoples in the United States. Available Format: book |
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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the PresentAuthor: David Treuer
An anthropologist's chronicle of the lives of Indigenous peoples in the United States from the Wounded Knee Massacre, which saw nearly 300 Lakota people killed by the U.S. Cavalry, to the present day. Available Format: book |
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House Made of DawnAuthor: N. Scott Momaday
Based on the author’s own experiences at the Jemez Pueblo, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel depicts a young man returning from World War II caught between two worlds. Available Format: book |
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Love Medicine,Author: Louise Erdrich
An epic story about the intertwined fates of three families—the Kashpaws, the Lamartines, and the Morrisseys—set on and around a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation. Erdrich’s debut won the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. Available format: book, literacy volunteer selections edition. |
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The Round HouseAuthor: Louise Erdrich
When his mother, a tribal enrollment specialist living on a reservation in North Dakota, slips into an abyss of depression after being brutally attacked, 14-year-old Joe Coutz sets out with his three friends to find the person that destroyed his family. Available Format: book, large print book, book on CD, Overdrive ebook. |
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The Only Good IndiansAuthor: Stephen Graham Jones
Part gothic literary horror, part social commentary, The Only Good Indians tells the story of four friends from the Blackfeet Nation in Montana who find themselves in a desperate struggle for their lives against an entity that wants to exact revenge upon them for what they did on an elk hunt ten years earlier. Available Format: book |
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Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance Author: Leonard Peltier
Incarcerated since 1977, Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier shares his life story alongside his philosophical views on prison and how it has affected him. Available Format: book |
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There ThereAuthor: Tommy Orange
Through his large cast of interwoven characters, Orange explores a wide range of experiences among Indigenous peoples living in the United States in this PEN/Hemingway Award–winning novel. Available Format: book, book on CD, |
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Where the Dead Sit TalkingAuthor: Brandon Hobson
After his mother is jailed, a young Cherokee boy, Sequoyah, bonds with another Indigenous child, Rosemary, in the foster home where they have both been placed. Together, they experience deepening feelings for each other while dealing with the scars of their pasts. Available Format: book |
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WHEREAS: PoemsAuthor: Layli Long Soldier
WHEREAS examines the language of the U.S. Government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Indigenous peoples and tribes to explore histories, landscapes, Soldier's own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. Available Format: book |