Indigenous

Stealing Little Moon: The Legacy Of American Indian Residential Schools: The Legacy Of American Indian Residential Schools

Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight was four years old when armed federal agents showed up at her home and took her from her family. Under the authority of the government, she was sent away to a boarding school specifically created to strip her of her Ponca culture and teach her the ways of white society. Little Moon was one of thousands of Indigenous children forced to attend these schools across America and give up everything they’d ever known: family, friends, toys, clothing, food, customs, even their language. She would be the first of four generations of her family who would go to the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.

Dan SaSuWeh Jones chronicles his family’s time at Chilocco–starting with his grandmother Little Moon’s arrival when the school first opened and ending with him working on the maintenance crew when the school shut down nearly one hundred years later. Together with the voices of students from other schools, both those who died and those who survived, Dan brings to light the lasting legacy of the boarding school era. Part American history, part family history, Stealing Little Moon is a powerful look at the miseducation and the mistreatment of Indigenous kids, while celebrating their strength, resiliency, and courage–and the ultimate failure of the United States government to erase them.

Buffalo Dreamer

When 12-year-old Summer visits her family on a reservation in Alberta, Canada, she begins experiencing vivid dreams of running away from a residential school like the one her grandfather attended as a child and learns about unmarked children’s graves, prompting her to seek answers about her community’s painful past.

This book is featured in Season 3, Episode 2 of the WOW Reads podcast.
This book is the WOW Recommends: Book of the Month for April 2025.

Daughter Of the Light-Footed People: The Story Of Indigenous Marathon Champion Lorena Ramírez

From the copper canyons of Mexico her swift footsteps echo. Clip clap, clip clap. Experience a 60-mile run with Indigenous athlete Lorena Ramirez, who captured the world’s attention when she won an ultramarathon in Mexico wearing a skirt and rubber sandals — the traditional clothes of the Rarámuri, the light-footed people.

This book is part of the Worlds of Words Global Reading List for 2023/24.

Featured in WOW Review Volume XVIII, Issue 1.

Wild Bird

In the small colonial community of Victoria in 1861, sixteen-year-old Kate Harding is trying to help her mother as she is about to give premature birth in their home. While mother and daughter make it through the grueling ordeal with the help of a local midwife, the baby does not live. The irony of this tragic event is that Kate’s father is one of the few doctors in the colony, but he was out tending to other patients at the time. Wild Bird takes readers up close as a young girl yearns to find her place through meaningful work, while the author describes the ways in which Indigenous people relate to the recently arrived settlers.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day (Traditions & Celebrations)

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is about celebrating! The second Monday in October is a day to honor Native American people, their histories, and cultures. People mark the day with food, dancing, and songs. Readers will discover how a shared holiday can have multiple traditions and be celebrated in all sorts of ways.

Notable Native People: 50 Indigenous Leaders, Dreamers, And Changemakers From Past And Present

A beautifully illustrated collection of true stories that celebrates 50 notable American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people. Learn about the lives and contributions of Indigenous artists, activists, scientists, athletes and other change makers.

I Sang You Down From The Stars

A beautifully illustrated and unique baby book illuminates Native cultural details as a mother-to-be gathers gifts to create a sacred bundle to welcome her new baby. With each new thing she adds, the bundle offers the new baby great strength and strong connection to family, community and its traditions. Indigenous creators, author Tasha Spillett-Sumner and bestselling illustrator and Caldecott Medalist Michaela Goade, combine beautiful words and luminous that illuminates the blossoming love that comes with expecting and welcoming a new baby.

 

Soldiers Unknown

Beginning at Klamath River in 1918, Soldiers Unknown tells the story of three cousins who are called to serve a nation that has given little to their people. Up until now, the native Yurok people of Northern California have remained untouched by the world war raging in Europe, but that soon changes as the cousins are thrust into battle on the Western Front of the Great War.

Elatsoe

Imagine an America very similar to our own. It’s got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day. Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered, in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family. Darcie Little Badger is an extraordinary debut talent in the world of speculative fiction. We have paired her with her artistic match, illustrator Rovina Cai. This is a book singular in feeling and beauty.