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Alexie,
Sherman (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene), The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. 2007, b/w illustrations by Ellen Forney.
What do you do when, every day, you leave your home reservation—“located
approximately one million miles north of Important and two billion
miles west of Happy”—to attend a high school where the
only other Indian is the school mascot and you have to pretend not
to be poor and your best friend becomes your worst enemy because
you deserted him and you know your parents are sacrificing for you
and doing the best they can but sometimes you have to hitchhike home?
And, oh, yeah, you have a big head, huge hands and feet, you’re
nearsighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other and you stutter
and lisp. What do you do? You draw cartoons about your life and play
basketball, that’s what. Called “Junior” by his
friends and relatives on the Spokane reservation and “Arnold” by
the white people in the other part of the world he inhabits part-time,
he’s an Indian boy coming into adulthood, literally weaving
and dodging and rolling with the punches. But Absolutely True
Diary is not just a litany of pain; it’s also about strength and
resilience and endurance and culture and community. And laughter,
lots of it, at the joys, at the sorrows, even at the tragedies. And
always and ever, it’s about the land. As Junior and Rowdy climb
almost to the top of the biggest tree on the reservation, they see “from
one end of the reservation to the other. We could see our entire
world. And our entire world, at that moment, was green and golden
and perfect.”
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Armstrong, Jeannette (Okanagan), Slash. (1985), 2007.
Through the fictionalized memoir of young Okanagan activist-by-chance Tommy Kelasket—aka “Slash”—Amstrong puts a human face on the aboriginal struggle for land, culture and community. From British Columbia to Washington, DC, to Wounded Knee, Tommy/Slash, an average person from the Okanagan Reserve, moves in and out of the period of upheaval marking Canadian and U.S. Indian-federal relations from the 1960s through 1982, when Canada relented and half-heartedly recognized Aboriginal rights. “Our rights” Tommy says, “empty words on paper that had no compassion for what is human on the land.” Armstrong is a wonderful writer, and Slash is a very real person, on a journey that is at once heartbreaking and healing.
pb 22.00
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Awiakta,
Marilou (Cherokee), Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and
Atom Meet. (1986), 2006.
Combining her Cherokee/Appalachian
heritage with the experience of growing up on the atomic frontier
in Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
Awiakta’s poetry follows the
trail of Awi Usdi, Little Deer, through the saga of the Trail of
Tears, through her own childhood, and into the heart of the atom itself.
pb 15.00
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Beardslee,
Lois (Ojibwe), Lies to Live By. 2003, b/w illustrations by the author.
Like the great trickster-hero
Manaboozhou, Lois Beardslee’s stories ignore all boundaries of
time and space, and celebrate
real Indian
lives. Delving into the sacred aspects of sweetgrass and
a well-used pair of scissors, of flying pigs, fried eggs
and
WD-40, these
are not the ubiquitous Indian “myths and legends” that
white people love to retell—they’re real stories about
real people, Manaboozhou’s relatives.
pb 20.00
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Blue Cloud, Peter/Aroniawenrate (Mohawk), Clans of Many Nations.
1995.
These poems, spanning
25 years in the life of one of the major literary voices of Native
people, speak of New York City’s
high steel construction
and quiet mountains, of Alcatraz Island and “this bit
of Mohawk territory encircled/by cities, towns, freeway and
seaway” that “cannot be what my ancestors
dreamed.” His
writing is beautiful.
pb 14.00
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Bruchac,
Joseph (Abenaki), No Borders. 1999.
Although Joe Bruchac
is an accomplished storyteller he is, first of all, a poet. This
volume of new and selected
poems is dedicated “for
all those who see this earth without maps.” It is beautiful,
and will encourage youngsters to look around and see things
with a
new awareness—and maybe even write their own poems.
pb 13.00
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Campbell, Maria (Cree/Métis), Halfbreed. 1973.
“I write this for all of you, to tell you what it is like to be a Halfbreed woman in our country. I want to tell you about the joys and sorrows, the oppressing poverty, the frustration and the dreams.... I am not bitter. I have passed that stage. I only want to say: this is what it was like, this is what it is still like.”
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Carlson,
Lori Marie, ed.; Moccasin Thunder: American Indian Stories
for Today. 2005.
All of the narrators
in these ten short stories are contemporary young Indian people,
shakily standing on the precipice of adulthood,
trying to figure out their place in the world, trying to figure
out what truths the stories hold.
Amid poor choices and alcohol in an Indian boarding school, a
young woman dreams about getting to the planet Venus. A lonely
young
man comes to know the need that he and his absent father have
for each
other. A “real-live blond Cherokee” who works in a funky
costume shop has to confront stereotypes at every turn. A young drug
dealer who dreams of becoming a teacher tries to turn his life around.
A determined grandma refuses to be shamed by a wealthy white woman.
A high school student learns from an elderly uncle that “all
we can do is just the best we can.” A young man, overtaken
by anger, lust and shame, finds a way to make amends. A crazy old
auntie’s stories about poison circling around come to fruition.
An elder models for her grandson that there’s more than one
way to help someone learn. A child who feels unloved longs for “the
moment of possible magic” when she will be reunited with
her parents.
The young lives portrayed in these stories—by Sherman Alexie, Joseph Bruchac, Louise Erdrich, Lee Francis, Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, Susan Power, Greg Sarris, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Richard Van Camp—will appeal to Indian
readers in middle school and beyond, and just might teach non-Indian
readers what they won’t find in textbooks.
hc 17.00
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Conley, Robert J. (Cherokee), Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the
Trail of Tears. 1992.
In weaving together
song, legend, and historical documents, Conley tells the love
story of two ordinary people caught
up in the removal
from their traditional lands and brings to life the suffering
and endurance of the Cherokee people.
pb 17.00
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Dauenhauer, Nora Marks (Tlingit), Life Woven with
Song. 2000, b/w photos.
The writing in this book is as beautiful as the painting on the
cover. Norma Marks Dauenhauer is one of the elders of our writings
and she lives the spirit. Poetry and essays out of her life
comprise the contents of this volume.
pb 18.00
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Deloria, Ella Cara (Yankton), Waterlily.
1990.
Waterlily,
finished in 1947 and not published during Deloria’s life, is
a novel, a life story of the Dakota people, as their lives
were
beginning
to
be disrupted by the wasichu. Told from a woman’s viewpoint,
it emphasizes the traditional network of obligations and
relationships
that formed
cultural unity. It’s a good story, and woven into it are
the solidly-based facts of actual plains life: “Teton children loved to give.
As far back as they could remember they had been made to give or their
elders gave in their name, honoring them, until they learned to feel
a responsibility to do so. Furthermore, they found it pleasant to
be thanked graciously and have their ceremonial names spoken aloud.
For giving was basic to Dakota life. The idea behind it was this:
if everyone gives, then everyone gets; it is inevitable. And so old
men and women preached continuously: Be hospitable. Be generous. Nothing
is too good for giving away. The children grew up hearing that, until
it was a fixed notion.”
pb 13.00
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Dumont,
Marilyn (Cree/Métis), A Really Good Brown Girl.
1996.
With sly wit and determination
(and very good writing), Dumont challenges the boundaries imposed
on Indian people by white
society. Watch outDumont
is a really good brown girl with an attitude!
pb 14.00
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Durham, Jimmie (Cherokee), Columbus Day. 1983, b/w illustrations by the author.
Jimmie Durham’s rigorous
and disciplined poetry is written with passion, about real things,
real people. The
truths in this book are “as
eloquent as the sound of a rattlesnake...as direct as the strike
of a rattlesnake...as conclusive as the bite of a beautiful
red and black
coral snake.”
pb 9.00
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Charles A. Eastman/Ohiyesa
(Dakota), From the Deep Woods to
Civilization. (1916), 1977 b/w illustrations.
In this second part of his autobiography, Ohiyesa tells of his abrupt
entry into the whitepeople world in 1873 at the age of 15. From his
first job as physician at Pine Ridge Agency, where he witnessed the
events that led up to the Wounded Knee massacre, Ohiyesa devoted his
life to his people.
pb 14.00
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Framst,
Louise (Tahltan),
A
Tahltan Cookbook, vol. 1: George & Grace Edzerza Family. 1994, b/w
photos.
A
Tahltan Cookbook, vol. 2: More Than 88 Ways to Cook Salmon
and other Favourite Recipes. 1996, b/w photos.
A Tahltan
Cookbook, vol. 3: Campfire Cooking. 1997,
b/w photos.
These are not “just” cookbooks; the stories
and photos are as entertaining as the recipes. The Light Raspberry
Bavarian
and Broiled Salmon are delicious; we haven’t tried the Boiled
Moose Nose or Sweet and Sour Bear yet.... We arbitrarily placed
these
books in the grades 7-up category; many of the recipes may be
used with
younger children.
each volume, hc 15.00 |
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Heisey, Adriel and Kenji Kawano, In the Fifth World: Portrait
of the Navajo Nation. 2001, color, b/w photos.
Two gifted photographers working for the Navajo Nation team up
here to produce an awesome collection of photographs that together
tell a pictorial story of the land and the people. Heisey’s
aerial color portraits of the land pair with Kawano’s black-and-white
portraits of the people—often, one of each on a two-page
spread—to
show, in a sense, the Diné belief that the land and
her people will never be separated. From the foreword by Peterson
Zah: “The
Earth is our Mother. Our skin is the same as the soil from
the Mother Earth, our blood flows as the rivers that flow from
the
mountains, and our voices are like thunder. The Great Spirit
is inside each of us. We are all part of Creation.”
pb 22.00
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| From Linda Hogan (Chickasaw) |
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Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World. 1995.
Sherman Alexie says of these 16 piercingly beautiful essays, “Linda Hogan has written a gutsy and tender book. She teaches us about the beauty of our world, but makes no guarantees. This is a book of stories filled with intimate and gentle revelations that can tear your head off. I mean it.”
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Mean Spirit. 1990,
Osage
In the 1920s, the discovery
of oil in Oklahoma on land belonging to Indian people spurs a
vicious campaign of fraud, intimidation,
and
murder by white businessmen, officers of the law, and their
henchmen. Rooted in a true episode of greed, violence,
and tragedy, Hogan has
carved out a story of a people’s will to resist.
pb 8.00
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Red Clay: Poems and Stories.
1991.
“These poems,” Hogan
says, “grew out of the Oklahoma
terrain resonant with the calls of frogs, my grandfather’s
horse and wagon, my grandmother’s uncut braids wrapped about
her head in the
traditional Chickasaw manner, the firefly-lit nights we sat
outside and heard stories, including the one of the gunstocks
made from our
stolen black walnut trees. In these poems live red land and
light.”
pb 10.00
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Savings. 1988.
These early poems of
extraordinary strength and grace lift off the page so easily
that one could think Hogan is with
the reader, visiting,
sharing ideas and images over a cup of coffee.
pb 11.00
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Solar Storms.
1995.
A hurt and rebellious
teenager, scarred in face and spirit, sets out to search for
her birth family, her mother, and
herself. Reunited
with her great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and the
woman who adopted her mother, this family of women sets
off by canoe on
a journey to their ancestral homeland in the far North, where
a hydroelectric dam project threatens the existence of
two indigenous nations.
pb 14.00
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Hungry
Wolf, Beverly (Blackfoot), The Ways of My Grandmothers.
1980, b/w photos.
Beverly Hungry Wolf
writes about the lives of Native women as experienced by her
people during the recent past. A
lot of nonsense has been written about the
women of Native America, past and present. The Ways of My Grandmothers is
an antidote.
pb 14.00
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