By Traci Sorell
Illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight
Published by Penguin Random House

ABOUT POWWOW DAY
In this uplifting, contemporary Native American story, River is recovering from illness and can’t dance at the powwow this year. Will she ever dance again?


River wants so badly to dance at powwow day as she does every year. In this uplifting and contemporary picture book perfect for beginning readers, follow River’s journey from feeling isolated after an illness to learning the healing power of community.



Additional information explains the history and functions of powwows, which are commonplace across the United States and Canada and are open to both Native Americans and non-Native visitors. Author Traci Sorell is a member of the Cherokee Nation, and illustrator Madelyn Goodnight is a member of the Chickasaw Nation.

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By Ria Thundercloud

Illustrated by Kalila J. Fuller
Published by Penguin Workshop

ABOUT FINDING MY DANCE
In her debut picture book, professional Indigenous dancer Ria Thundercloud tells the true story of her path to dance and how it helped her take pride in her Native American heritage.



At four years old, Ria Thundercloud was brought into the powwow circle, ready to dance in the special jingle dress her mother made for her. As she grew up, she danced with her brothers all over Indian country. Then Ria learned more styles–tap, jazz, ballet–but still loved the expressiveness of Indigenous dance. And despite feeling different as one of the only Native American kids in her school, she always knew she could turn to dance to cheer herself up.

Follow along as Ria shares her dance journey–from dreaming of her future to performing as a professional–accompanied by striking illustrations that depict it while bringing her graceful movements to life.

ABOUT RIA THUNDERCLOUD
Ria Thundercloud (she/her) is from the Ho-Chunk Nation and Sandia Pueblo. She holds strong ties to her kinship in the Southwest and North, practicing both styles of traditional dance. She started training in classical dance at the age of thirteen, went professional at sixteen, and has traveled internationally as a cultural ambassador and professional dancer. Ria is a 2019 graduate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Indigenous Liberal Studies and is a holistic yoga teacher from the Healing Lotus Center. Her art is influenced by the women who came before her, reclaiming stories of matriarchs that highlight the resilience and knowledge of Indigenous women.

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By Gary Robinson
Published by Tribal Eye Productions

ABOUT Lands of our Ancestors: Book One
This historical novel tells the story of a twelve-year-old Chumash boy and his family who become captives in a California Spanish mission sometime more than 200 years ago. This is historical fiction based entirely on historical fact that reveals the devastating impact the missions had on California Native peoples. Written for fourth, fifth and sixth graders, the story ends on a hopeful note as a small group of Native children are able to escape their captors and begin a journey to join other Native escapees in a remote mountain village. As mandated by the California Department of Education, every 4th grader is taught the “Mission Unit,” which perpetuates the “idyllic mission myth” that glorifies the priests, denigrates California Indians and fails to mention that Indians were actually treated as slaves held captive by a Spanish colonial institution. The manuscript has been reviewed and approved by the Director of the Santa Ynez Chumash Culture Department and a member of the California American Indian Education Oversight Committee. It has the endorsement of a fourth grade teacher in California who has shared the story with her class and a local librarian who is excited about sharing the story with elementary age children through the library. It has also been endorsed by the local library branch manager and a former professor of Anthropology within the University of California system.

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By Gary Robinson
Published by Tribal Eye Productions

ABOUT Lands of our Ancestors: Book TWO
Kilik, Tuhuy and the other Native American children have escaped from a Spanish mission in California in the early 1800s. They find the village of other runaway Indians and become part of that community. As they grow and mature, they have children of their own. Together they must face a new set of adversaries, the Mexican Rancheros who have received massive land grants to establish huge cattle ranches. Book Two recounts the exciting and dangerous adventures this Chumash family experience in this multigenerational saga.

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By Carole Lindstrom

Illustrated by Michaela Goade
Published by Roaring Brook Press

ABOUT WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS
From author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Michaela Goade comes a New York Times bestselling and Caldecott Medal winning picture book that honors Indigenous-led movements across the world. Powerfully written and gorgeously illustrated, We Are Wa- ter Protectors, issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and curruption-inviting young readers everywhere to join the fight.
 


Water is the first medicine.

It affects and connects us all . . .

When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth And poison her people’s water, one young water protector Takes a stand to defend Earth’s most sacred resource.

The fight continues with Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior, the must-read companion book to We Are Water Protectors. Written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Bridget George, it tells the story of real-life water protectors, Autumn Peltier and her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin, two Indigenous Rights Activists who have inspired a tidal wave of change.

ABOUT CAROLE LINDSTROM
Carole Lindstrom is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of literature for young people, including the Caldecott Medal-winning WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS. She is Anishinaabe/Metis and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. She is honored to write books that allow her to shine a light on her beautiful people and their strength and resilience. Her tribal homelands are in Belcourt, North Dakota, but she was born and raised in Nebraska and currently makes her home in Maryland.

Carole has been a voracious reader and library geek ever since she was growing up in Nebraska. On weekends you could usually find her at the library lost in the book stacks or holed up in her bedroom with a good book. It wasn’t until she had her son, that she discovered her love of writing for children and began to work seriously on her writing.resilience and knowledge of Indigenous women.

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By Carole Lindstrom

Illustrated by Steph Littlebird
Published by Harry N. Abrams

ABOUT WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS
From the award-winning and bestselling author of We Are Water Protectors comes an empowering picture book about family history, self-expression, and reclaiming your identity
 


Our ancestors say our hair is our memories,

our source of strength and power,

a celebration of our lives.

Mom never had long hair—she was told it was too wild. Grandma couldn’t have long hair—hers was taken from her. But one young girl can’t wait to grow her hair long: for herself, for her family, for her connection to her culture and the Earth, and to honor the strength and resilience of those who came before her.

ABOUT CAROLE LINDSTROM
Carole Lindstrom is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of literature for young people, including the Caldecott Medal-winning WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS. She is Anishinaabe/Metis and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. She is honored to write books that allow her to shine a light on her beautiful people and their strength and resilience. Her tribal homelands are in Belcourt, North Dakota, but she was born and raised in Nebraska and currently makes her home in Maryland.

Carole has been a voracious reader and library geek ever since she was growing up in Nebraska. On weekends you could usually find her at the library lost in the book stacks or holed up in her bedroom with a good book. It wasn’t until she had her son, that she discovered her love of writing for children and began to work seriously on her writing.

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By Kevin Noble Maillard

Illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
Published by Roaring Brook Press

ABOUT FRY BREAD
Winner of the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
A 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Picture Book Honor Winner

“Through the story and the book’s beautiful pictures, Kevin Noble Maillard and Juana Martinez-Neal capture the complexity of native identity.”
- Graham Lee Brewer, NPR

“A wonderful and sweet book [that] takes a staple food of many tribes across the coun- try and uses it to think about family, history, memory and community. . . Lovely stuff.”
– The New York Times Book Review

“With buoyant, heartfelt illustrations that show the diversity in Native America, the book tells the story of a post-colonial food, a shared tradition across the North American continent . . . Through this topic that includes the diversity of so many Native peoples in a single story, Maillard (Mekusukey Seminole) promotes unity and familiarity among nations. Fry bread is much more than food, as this book amply demonstrates.”
– Kirkus Reviews, starred review

ABOUT KEVIN NOBLE MAILLARD
Kevin Noble Maillard is an author of children’s literature, a journalist and recipe developer for the New York Times, and a Professor of Law at Syracuse University. He has written for The Atlantic and has provided on-air commentary to ABC News and MSNBC. He is the debut author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, a picture book illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, which won the Sibert Medal and the American Indian Youth Literature Honor. An enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklaho- ma, he is based in Manhattan, NY.

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By Maria Tallchief and Rosemary Wells 

Illustrated by Gary Kelley
Published by Puffin Books

ABOUT TALL CHIEF
Growing up on the Osage Indian reservation, Maria Tallchief was a gifted pianist and dancer. According to Osage tradition, women are not permitted to dance, but Maria’s parents recognized her gifts and allowed her to break the rule. Then when Maria reached the age of twelve, her father told her it was time to choose between her two loves. Maria chose ballet. It was a decision that would change not only the course of her life, but the face of classical ballet in America. The fascinating story of Maria Tallchief’s rise to become America’s prima ballerina will captivate young readers.

ABOUT Maria (Marjorie) Tallchief
Maria (Marjorie) Tallchief, the daughter of a full-blooded Osage Indian father and a mother of Scotch-Irish descent, was the queen of American ballet in its glory years; and her life story reads like a fairy tale, but one in which the princess must pay a high price for her magical gifts. Tallchief devoted herself to ballet at an early age, achieving instant recognition when she went to New York in 1942 at age 17. Immediately accepted as a member of the Ballet Russe, she caught the fervent attention of the controversial and brilliant choreographer George Balanchine. He made Tallchief not only his prima ballerina – creating unforgettable roles for her that called for “pyrotechnical virtuosity and limitless stamina” – but also his wife. Tallchief, adeptly assisted by coauthor Larry Kaplan, who also cowrote Edward Villella’s autobiography, Prodigal Son (1991), is mod- est about her own stupendous talent but expresses undiminished awe for Balanchine’s genius. Her descriptions of working with Balanchine and Stravinsky are fascinating and exhilarating, but her accounts of the terrible strain of 14-hour days of practice and performance are sobering. At the height of her career, Tallchief suffered from “perpetual exhaustion” and a fractured personal life, but she has no regrets–only sterling memories and much to be proud of. Donna Seaman.

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By Melanie Florence 

Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard
Published by Second Story Press

ABOUT STOLEN WORDS
The story of the beautiful relationship between a little girl and her grandfather. When she asks her grandfather how to say something in his language – Cree – he admits that his language was stolen from him when he was a boy. The little girl then sets out to help her grandfather find his language again. This sensitive and warmly illustrated picture book explores the intergenerational impact of the residential school system that separat- ed young Indigenous children from their families. The story recognizes the pain of those whose culture and language were taken from them, how that pain is passed down, and how healing can also be shared.

ABOUT MELANIE FLORANCE
Melanie Florence has been writing full-time since 2010 and has written a bunch of books, but she’s probably best known for her picture books, Missing Nimama and Sto- len Words, which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the 2018 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award respectively.

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