It is a healing gesture to honor Indigenous Americans and others during the month-long celebrations intended to remedy the omission of groups, whose origins are not European. We need more! Let's create inclusivity! In an inclusive society, who are the "them" and who are the "us?" We all need to be recognized as citizens of our country instead of occasional entertainment for "drive-by" tourists of diversity. Inclusivity also means caring for all who share our planet: all other animals; waters; terrains; plants, etc. My award-winning books have usually been about Native peoples of North America, particularly the United States, and how we have always been here and still exist.
I wrote...
Indigenous Firsts: A History of Native American Achievements and Events
Most Americans are clueless when it comes to anything about Indigenous people. Did you know that Native Americans serve in the United States' Armed Forces at five times the national average? The United States has had one Indigenous vice-president and Debra Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) serves as the first Native U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Who is credited with being the "Father of Pediatric Psychology?" You will read about all of these incredible firsts and much more in Indigenous Firsts: A History of Native American Achievements and Events. Chocked full of historical and contemporary information in wide-ranging areas from sculpture to science to music to economics to films and much more, Indigenous Firsts celebrates thousands of the accomplishments and victories of both Indigenous individuals, organizations, and nations.
Water is essential to all of us, not just Native peoples, but all people, plants, animals, and all life on our planet. This book with its gorgeous illustrations celebrates Indigenous-led movements to protect water and preserve our future. It's a call to action that urges each one of us, no matter how young, to champion justice for the environment. Lindstrom's words flow like water and carry us to the conclusion that there is hope if we all accept responsibility for the caretaking of our planet.
Winner of the 2021 Caldecott Medal #1 New York Times Bestseller
Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption―a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by Michaela Goade.
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.
This is the correct history of the United States told from an Indigenous perspective. Spanning four centuries of violence, genocide, and devastation of Indigenous peoples, cultures, and economies, this book debunks the myth that the United States was formed as a democracy for all. Dunbar-Ortiz chronicles how the Doctrine of Discovery made the conquest and subjugation of Indigenous peoples a holy war. She writes like a poet, squeezing lots of material into a small space—an essential read for those who want the truth about our country. Debbie Reese (Nambé Pueblo) and Jean Mendoza adapted the book for young people in a 2019 edition.
Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck
Recipient of the American Book Award
The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortizoffers a history…
We Americans are obsessed with mysteries from TV to Film to Books. And I am obsessed with the young sleuth, Cash Blackbear, the unlikely shero of Marcie R. Rendon. To date, there are three Blackbear mysteries:Murder on the Red River, Girl Gone Missing, and Sinister Graves. Blackbear did not have an enchanted childhood, but she not only survives—she thrives and solves cases with the astuteness, curiosity, and moxie of the most seasoned detective. Set in Northern Minnesota in the 1970s, the series heroine is 19, totally independent, hard-working, and somewhat of a pool hustler. Her one friend, Sherriff Wheaton, recognizes her brilliance and intuition and accepts and supports her. Blackbear helps him solve crimes, even if he protests. If you're a mystery fan, follow some Indigenous sleuths and Rendon's series is a great place to start.
Introducing Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman whose visions and grit help solve a brutal murder in this award-winning debut.
1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.
Thomas King is one of my favorite authors so of course I think everyone should read all of his books, fiction and non-fiction. In The Inconvenient Indian, King shares an account of Indian—white relations in North America since the beginning. And he does it by chronicling official government Indian policy, pop culture, personal observations, wisdom, truth, and humor. He debunks stereotypes, recounts events accurately, and in spite of all the brutal truth-telling presents a way for Indigenous and those of the dominant culture to heal. My favorite King fiction work is Medicine River, which was made into a film (spoiler alert - he's in it!).
In The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian-White relations in North America since initial contact. Ranging freely across the centuries and the Canada-U.S. border, King debunks fabricated stories of Indian savagery and White heroism, takes an oblique look at Indians (and cowboys) in film and popular culture, wrestles with the history of Native American resistance and his own experiences as a Native rights activist, and articulates a profound, revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.
I always believed that all beings have a spirit and personality, but while reading Gathering Moss, I felt I had actually been invited to meet moss communities! In this book and its sequel, Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer shows us how to restore our relationships to land and all that dwells in our ecosystem. A scientist and writer, Dr. Kimmerer shares her personal encounters with "plant people" and their associations with birds, people, insects, and what we can learn from our plant relations. This is not a "field guide" to identifying plants, but a "feel good guide" of gentle essays about this great world and our place in it. Dr. Kimmerer has a beautiful melodic voice and hearing her tell the stories on audio books is a special treat!
Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.
In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating…
Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they haven’t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York career and joins her husband in Southeast Asia when he takes a job there. She acquires several paintings by a colonial-era British artist that she believes are a warning.
The artist, Elizabeth Pennington, tells her own tumultuous story through diary entries that end when World War I reaches the colony with catastrophic results. In the present, Aislinn and her husband learn that terrorism takes many shapes when they are ensnared by local political upheaval and corruption.
"Aislinn Givens leaves a settled life in Manhattan for an unsettled life in Singapore. That painting radiates mystery and longing. So does Clifford Garstang's vivid and simmering novel, The Last Bird of Paradise." –John Dalton, author of Heaven Lake and The Inverted Forest
Two women, nearly a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives when they reluctantly leave their homelands. Arriving in Singapore, they find romance in a tropical paradise, but also find they haven't left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and haunted by the specter of terrorism, Aislinn Givens leaves her…
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