KEY: jP = Picture Books; jZ = 1st and 2nd Grade Readers; jE = 3rd and 4th Grade Readers; J = 5th Grade and Up

NATIVE AMERICANS

updated 7/09

PICTURE BOOKS


Bruchac, Joseph MANY NATIONS
An Alphabet of Native America

Illustrations and brief text present aspects of the lives of the many varied native peoples across North America. (International Reading Association Teacher's Choice Award)
1997 unpaged

Hobbs, Will BEARDREAM
When Short Tail Climbs into the mountains to find the Great Bear, he tires and slips into a dream in which the Great One reveals a marvelous secret.
1997 unpaged

James, Betsy THE MUD FAMILY
A drought threatens to force Sosi's family to move from their Canyon, unless she can bring rain with her dancing. Anasazi deserts of the American southwest.
1994 unpaged

Lemieux, Margo FULL WORM MOON
An Algonquian family spends a cold night waiting to see the earthworms dance as they did in the ancient story about the full worm moon.
1994 unpaged

Lyon, George DREAMPLACE
Present-day visitors describe what they see when they visit the pueblos where the Anasazi lived long ago.
1993 unpaged

Mitchell, Barbara RED BIRD
Katie, also known as Red Bird, joins her family and other Indians at the annual powwow in southern Delaware, where they celebrate their Nanticoke heritage with music, dancing, and special foods.
1996 unpaged

Raczek, Linda THE NIGHT THE GRANDFATHERS DANCED
When the boys her own age run away from her at the Bear Dance, Autumn Eyetoo picks a partner from among the old men of the tribe.
1995 unpaged

Wood, Douglas NORTHWOODS CRADLE SONG
A poetic adaptation of a Menominee Indian Lullaby that describes the sights and sounds of night.
1996 unpaged


Beginning-to-Read Books

Benchley, Nathaniel SMALL WOLF
A young Native American boy sets out to hunt on Manhattan Island and discovers some strange people with white faces and very different ideas about land.
1994 64 p.


3rd - 4th Grades

Bunting, Eve CHEYENNE AGAIN
In the late 1880's, a Cheyenne boy named Young Bull is taken to a boarding school to learn the white man's ways.
1995 unpaged

Burks, Brian WALKS ALONE
1879. After a surprise attack leaves many of her people dead, fifteen-year-old Walks Alone, an Apache girl wounded in the massacre, struggles to survive and rejoin the refugee band.
2000 124 p.

Hill, Kirkpatrick THE YEAR OF MISS AGNES
10-year-old Fred, (short for Frederika). narrates the story of school and village among the Athabascans in Alaska during 1948 when Miss Agnes arrived as a new teacher.
2002 113 p.

Hoobler, Dorothy THE TRAIL ON WHICH THEY WEPT
The Story of a Cherokee Girl
Forced to leave their homes in Georgia in 1837, Sarah Tsaluh Rogers, her family, and other Cherokees make the long and difficult journey along the Trail of Tears to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
1992 53 p.

Hunter, Sara THE UNBREAKABLE CODE
Because John is afraid to leave the Navajo Reservation, his grandfather explains to him how the Navajo language, faith, and ingenuity helped win World War II.
1996 unpaged

Ingoglia, Gina SACAJAWEA AND THE JOURNEY TO THE PACIFIC
Kidnapped from her Shoshone family as a teenager, Sacajawea was forced to live with the Hidatsa tribe until she was married off to a fur trader named Charbonneau. Soon after, she met Lewis and Clark, who were about to embark on an expedition to the Pacific.
1992 75 p.

Kudlinski, Kathleen NIGHT BIRD
A Story of Seminole Indians
In 1840, Night Bird, whose clan of Seminole Indians is fighting to preserve its traditional way of life in Florida, must decide whether to seek land and an unknown future in distant Oklahoma.
1993 51 p.

Roop, Peter THE BUFFALO JUMP
Angry that his older brother is chosen to be the buffalo runner who lures the buffalo to their deaths, Little Blaze, the fastest runner of his Blackfeet tribe, must overcome his resentment when his brother's life is endangered.
1996 unpaged

Shaw, Janet CHANGES FOR KAYA
A Story of Courage

Book 6
American Girls
While looking for Steps High, the horse that had been stolen from her, Kaya faces danger from a sudden mountain fire. Includes historical notes on the Nez Perce Indians.
2002 58 pages

Shaw, Janet KAYA SHOWS THE WAY
A SISTER STORY

Book 5
American Girls
When Kaya and her family join with other Nez Perce and Salish Indians to fish for the red salmon, she and her older sister hope to be reunited with their younger sister, who had been kidnapped some time before. Includes historical notes on the summer activities of the Nez Perce Indians.
2002 63 pages

Shaw, Janet KAYA'S ESCAPE!
A Survival Story

Book 2
American Girls
In the fall of 1764, after Kaya and her sister are kidnapped from their Nez Perce village by enemy horse raiders, she tries to find a way to escape back home. Includes historical notes on education and learning among the Nez Perce Indians.
2002 63 pages

Shaw, Janet KAYA'S HERO
A STORY OF GIVING

Book 3
American Girls
In 1764, Kaya greatly admires a courageous and kind young woman in her Nez Perce village and wants to be worthy of her respect.
2002 64 pages

Shaw, Janet KIRSTEN ON THE TRAIL
American Girls Short Stories
9-year-old Kirsten keeps her friendship with a Sioux Indian girl a secret until Kirsten's little brother becomes lost in the woods.
1999 29 pages

Shefelman, Janice YOUNG WOLF AND SPIRIT HORSE
Young Wolf goes in search of his horse Red Wind, which has been spirited away by a legendary wild stallion.
1997 48 pages

Stroud, Virginia DOESN'T FALL OFF HIS HORSE
Saygee's great-grandfather tells her the story of how he got his name, Doesn't Fall Off His Horse. Oklahoma Territory of the 1890s
1994 unpaged

Waldman, Neil THEY CAME FROM THE BRONX
HOW THE BUFFALO WERE SAVED FROM EXTINCTION

A Comanche grandmother and her grandson wait for the arrival of a herd of buffalo in this story based on the efforts of the American Bison Society to reintroduce bison to Oklahoma.
2001 unpaged

Wiebe, Rudy HIDDEN BUFFALO
When the Cree Indians need to find buffalo to hunt, a boy named Sky Running has a vision which indicates that the buffalo are in the lands of the Cree's enemy. Should they follow Sky Runnings vision? Based on a Cree legend.
2004 unpaged

Wiebe, Rudy HIDDEN BUFFALO
When the Cree Indians need to find buffalo to hunt, a boy named Sky Running has a vision which indicates that the buffalo are in the lands of the Cree's enemy. Should they follow Sky Runnings vision? Based on a Cree legend.
2004 unpaged

Whelan, Gloria HIDDEN BUFFALO
THE INDIAN SCHOOL
When she sneaks away to visit her friend, a young girl living on the Michigan frontier is caught up in the forced evacuation of a group of Potawatomi Indians from their tribal lands in the 1840's.
1993 62 pages

Whelan, Gloria NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON
sequel to Next Spring an Oriole
Michigan frontier, 1840. Based on a true story. While Libby is visiting her friend, Fawn, at the Potawatomi camp, soldiers, who have been sent to relocate the tribe, take Libby by mistake. After several days, Fawn's father manages to spirit Libby and his family safely back to Michigan.
1999 29 pages

Whelan, Gloria SHADOW OF THE WOLF
In 1841, 13-year-old Libby and her family begin a new life on the shores of Lake Michigan, where her father works as a surveyor for the Ottawa Indians and Libby is reunited with her Indian friend Fawn.
1997 79 pages


J

Armer, Laura WATERLESS MOUNTAIN
Younger Brother, a Navajo Indian boy, undergoes eight years of training in the ancient religion of his people and in the practical knowledge of material existence. Early 1900's.
1959 222 pages

Beatty, Patricia WAIT FOR ME, WATCH FOR ME, EULA BEE
With his father and brother serving in the Confederate Army and the rest of his family murdered in a Comanche raid of their west Texas farm, 13-year-old Lewallen seeks to free himself and his younger sister from their Indian captivity.
1978 216 pages

Bruchac, Joseph THE ARROW OVER THE DOOR
The "Saratoga Meeting" or "Easton Meeting" of Quakers and Abenaki Indians near Saratoga, New York brings 14-year-old Samuel, called a "coward" for his peace-loving Quaker beliefs, and Stands Straight, a young scout for King George, together during the summer of 1777.
1998 80 pages

Bruchac, Joseph CHILDREN OF THE LONGHOUSE
11-year-old's Ohkwa'ri and his twin sister must make peace with a hostile gang of older boys in their Mohawk village during the late 1400's. Near the modern-day village of Kanatsiohareke,(The Place of the Clean Pot), New York.
1996 146 pages

Bruchac, Joseph THE JOURNAL OF JESSE SMOKE, A CHEROKEE BOY
THE TRAIL OF TEARS, 1838

A Dear America Book
Jesse Smoke, a sixteen-year-old Cherokee, begins a journal in 1837 to record stories of his people and their difficulties as they face removal along the Trail of Tears.
201 203 pages

Burks, Brian RUNS WITH HORSES
16 years old in 1886, Runs With Horses trains to become a warrior with Geronimo's band of Apaches in the American Southwest.
1995 112 pages

Burks, Brian WALKS ALONE
After a surprise attack leaves many of her people dead, 15-year-old Walks Alone, an Apache girl wounded in the massacre, struggles to survive and rejoin the refugee band.
1998 112 pages

Cornelissen, Cornelia SOFT RAIN. The Story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Soft Rain, a 9-year-old Cherokee girl, is forced to relocate, along with her family, from North Carolina to the West.
1998 109 pages

DeFelice, Cynthia WEASEL
Alone in the frontier wilderness in the winter of 1839 while his father is recovering from an injury, 11-year-old Nathan runs afoul of the renegade killer known as Weasel and makes a surprising discovery about the concept of revenge. Shawnee Indians. Ohio 1839.
1990 119 pages

Dorris, Michael GUESTS
Moss and Trouble, an Algonquin boy and girl, struggle with the problems of growing up in the Massachusetts area during the time of the first Thanksgiving, 1621.
1994 119 pages

Dorris, Michael SEES BEHIND TREES
A Native American boy with a special gift to "see" beyond his poor eyesight journeys with an old warrior to a land of mystery and beauty.
1994 104 pages

Dubois, Muriel ABENAKI CAPTIVE
In 1752, 18-year-old Abenaki warrior Ogistin is present when a band of his people capture an English trapper, John Stark, and as Stark is carried into captivity in Canada a bond of hate and competition develops between him and Ogistin.
1994 173 pages

Duncklee, John QUEST FOR THE EAGLE FEATHER
Quiet Water, an Anglo boy found by Indians after being separated from his pioneer parents in a a storm, is rescued by Tall Deer. Tall Deer and Blue-Flower-Blooming raise him to the brink of manhood when Quiet Water must complete a quest in order to take his place in the tribe. He is torn. What became of the parents he lost? Where does he belong? This is a search for himself.
1997 85 pages

Durrant, Lynda THE BEADED MOCCASINS
The Story of Mary Campbell
After being captured by a group of Delaware Indians and given to their leader as a replacement for his dead granddaughter, 12-year-old Mary Campbell is forced to travel west with them to Ohio.
1998 171 pages

Durrant, Lynda ECHOHAWK
A 12-year-old white boy adopted and raised by Mohicans in the Hudson River Valley during the 1730's is sent with his younger brother to an English settlement for schooling.
1996 170 pages

Erdrich, Louise THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE
Omakayas, a 7-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.
1999 239 pages

Erdrich, Louise THE GAME OF SILENCE
Sequel to: The birchbark house. For sequel see: The porcupine year.
Nine-year-old Omakayas, of the Ojibwa tribe, moves west with her family in 1849. Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior.It is 1850, and the lives of the Ojibwe have returned to a familiar rhythm: they build their birchbark houses in the summer, go to the ricing camps in the fall to harvest and feast, and move to their cozy cedar log cabins near the town of LaPointe before the first snows. The satisfying routines of Omakayas's days are interrupted by a surprise visit from a group of desperate and mysterious people. From them, she learns that all their lives may drastically change. The chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and her people to leave their island in Lake Superior and move farther west. Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never knew she had it in the first place, is in danger: Her home. Her way of life.
2005 256 pages

Erdrich, Louise THE PORCUPINE YEAR
Sequel to: The Game of Silence.
In 1852, forced by the United States government to leave their beloved Island of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker, fourteen-year-old Omokayas and her Ojibwe family travel in search of a new home.
2008 193 pages

Fleischman, Paul SATURNALIA
In 1861 in Boston, 14-year-old William, a Narraganset Indian captured in a raid six years earlier, leads a productive and contented life as a printer's apprentice but is increasingly anxious to make some connection with his Indian past.
1990 109 pages

Garland, Sherry INDIO
1590. Teenage Ipa struggles to survive a brutal time of change as the Spanish begin the conquest of the native people along the Texas border.
1995 292 p.

Harrell, Beatrice
LONGWALKER'S JOURNEY

A Novel of the Choctaw Trail of Tears
When the government removes their tribe from their sacred homeland in 1831, 10-year-old Minko and his father endure terrible hardships on their journey from Mississippi to Oklahoma, where Minko receives the name Longwalker.
1999 133 p.

Hill, Kirkpatrick
MINUK
ASHES IN THE PATHWAY

Girls of Many Lands series
Twelve-year-old Minuk's traditional Eskimo way of life is changed forever in 1892 with the arrival of Christian missionaries.
2002 185 p.

Hotze, Sollace A CIRCLE UNBROKEN
Captured by a roving band of Sioux Indians and brought up as the Chief's daughter, Rachel is recaptured by her white family and finds it difficult to adjust, as she longs to return to the tribe.
1988 157 p.

Hudson, Jan SWEETGRASS
Living on the western Canadian prairie in the 19th century, Sweetgrass, a 15-year-old Blackfoot Indian girl, saves her family from a smallpox epidemic and proves her maturity to her father.
1984 157 p.

Hurmence, Belinda DIXIE IN THE BIG PASTURE
In 1908, 13-year-old Dixie's new life on the Oklahoma frontier is complicated by a war of nerves between her and John Three, a young Kiowa Indian who insists that his pony was sold to her without his permission.
1994 169 p.

Keehn, Sally MOON OF TWO DARK HORSES
At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, hoping to keep away from their valley, a twelve-year-old Delaware Indian boy and his white friend search sacred land for the bones of a legendary beast.
1995 218 p.

Kiekpatrick, Katherine TROUBLE'S DAUGHTER.
The Story of Susanna Hutchingson, Indian Captive
When her family is massacred by Lenape Indians in 1643, 9-year-old Susanna, daughter of Anne Hutchinson, is captured and raised as a Lenape. Based on a true story. Happens in what is now the Bronx, New York.
1998 224 p.

Lenski, Lois INDIAN CAPTIVE
THE STORY OF MARY JEMISON
A fictional retelling of the experiences of twelve-year-old Mary Jemison, who after being captured by a Shawnee war party during the French and Indian War, is rescued and subsequently adopted by two Seneca sisters. (Newbery Honor 1942)
1994 298 p.

Koller, Jackie THE PRIMROSE WAY
16-year-old Rebekah joins her missionary father in the New World in the 1630's and, after being introduced to Indian culture, begins to question whether these "savages" need saving after all.
1992 261 p.

MacGregor, Rob PROPHECY ROCK
Lansa visits his father, who is the tribal police chief on the Hopi reservation in northern Arizona, and learns about some sacred Hopi traditions while he helps investigate several murders.
1995 203 p.

Matcheck, Dianne THE SACRIFICE
When her father's death leaves her orphaned and an outcast among her Apssalooka "Crow" people, a 15-year-old sets out to avenge his death and prove that she, not her dead twin brother, is destined to be the Great One. Takes place in what is now Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska.
1998 194 p.

Moore, Robin MAGGIE AMONG THE SENECA
Maggie Callahan journeys across the rugged Pennsylvania frontier to find her kin but, just before she reaches her destination, she is taken captive by a band of Seneca warriors and forced to travel with them along the war trail.
1987 99 p.

O'Dell, Scott SING DOWN THE MOON
Arizona. Canyon de Chelly, 1864. A young Navajo girl recounts the events of 1864 when her tribe was forced to march to Fort Sumner as prisoners of the white soldiers.
1970 137 p.

O'Dell, Scott STREAMS TO THE RIVER, RIVER TO THE SEA
A Novel of Sacagawea
1986 191 p.

O'Dell, Scott THUNDER ROLLLING IN THE MOUNTAINS
In 1877, a young Nez Perce girl relates how her people were driven off their land by the U.S. Army and forced to retreat north until their eventual surrender, June-October. Montana/Idaho.
1992 126 p.

Rinaldi, Ann THE SECOND BEND IN THE RIVER
In 1798, Rebecca, a young settler in the Ohio territory, meets the Shawnee called Tecumseh and later develops a deep friendship with him.
1997 265 p.

Shaw, Janet THE SILENT STRANGER
A Kaya Mystery
American Girl
In 1765, the arrival of an injured stranger from another tribe, traveling alone and apparently unable to speak, arouses suspicion in Kaya's Nez Percâe village. Includes glossary and historical notes on the Nez Percâe Indians.
2005 132 p.

Shefelman, Janice COMANCHE SONG
A young Comanche boy experiences his tribe's conflicts with the Tejanos in 1840's Texas.
2000 252 p.

Smith, Patricia WEETAMOO, HEART OF THE POCASSETS
Massachusetts - Rhode Island, 1653
The Royal Diaries
The 1653-1654 diary of a 14-year-old Pocasset Indian girl, destined to become a leader of her tribe, describes how her life changes with the seasons, after a ritual fast she undertakes, and with her treibe's interaction with the English "Coat-men" of the nearby Plymouth Colony.
2003 147 p.

Stewart, Elisabeth ON THE LONG TRAIL HOME
Meli and her brother Tahlikwa escape from the Cherokee people being herded westward on the Trail of Tears, determined to return to their beloved mountain home (now environs Cherokee, North Carolina.) 1838-9.
1994 97 p.

Thomasma, Kenneth NAYA NUKI
Shoshoni Girl Who Ran
After being taken prisoner by an enemy tribe, a Shoshoni girl escapes and makes a thousand-mile journey through the wilderness in search of her own people.
1991 175 p.

Turner, Ann THE GIRL WHO CHASED AWAY SORROW
The Diary of Sarah Nita, a Navajo girl. New Mexico, 1864. Dear America Series
Separated from her family, Sarah Nita suffers cold, hunger, and fear on the Long Walk, when soldiers force the Navajo to walk hundreds of miles to imprisonment at Fort Sumner.
1999 169 p.

Willis, Patricia DANGER ALONG THE OHIO
Lost in the Ohio River Valley in May 1793, 12-year-old Clare and her two brothers struggle to survive in the wilderness and to avoid capture by the Shawnee Indians.
1997 181 p.


Young Adult

Bruchac, Joseph GERONIMOA Novel
Starting in 1886 with Geronimo's final surrender, this novel is told from the perspective of his adopted grandson Little Foot, and follows the Chiricahua Apaches from their home in Arizona to Florida. At Fort Marion, the group dwindles, losing children to the Carlisle Indian School, where those who contract tuberculosis are sent home to die and spread the disease. Little Foot escapes this fate and eventually joins the U.S. Infantry.
2006 360 pages