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There are a LOT of books listed on this exhibit guide! If you're interested but wondering what to read, here are a few Staff Picks to help get started with some noteworthy books!
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signals best-sellers and award-winning books.
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Katie recommends Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah. This debut novel by Hokeah explores the life of main character, Ever Geimausaddle, as told from his different family members through intersecting multigenerational vignettes. A blend of Cherokee, Kiowa, and Mexican cultures, the family weaves a complex and heavy story that explores issues such as familial trauma, generational poverty, systematic health disparities, and what it means to be a Native American in today's society.
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by 
Susan recommends: Many U.S. history books and textbooks tend to stop any coverage of indigenous issues around the 1890's, giving the impression that there is nothing to talk about related to indigenous issues in the 20th century to the present. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee counters this prevalent myth. David Treuer is a well-known indigenous studies researcher, author, and literary critic. He is Ojibwe and grew up on the Leech Lake Band reservation. He and his brother Anton Treuer (author of the engaging Everything you wanted to know about Indians but were afraid to ask) have also published on Ojibwe language maintenance. Treuer raises a really wide range of important and uncomfortable stories from 1890 to the present, including boarding school, tribal termination and relocation efforts, and also triumphant stories of resistance, such as Ponca Chief Standing Bear's landmark court case to "prove" his humanity, and 21st century language maintenance efforts using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Despite the difficult histories and content, Treuer's conversational writing style is very easy to read. You will learn a lot from this amazing book!
Jonny Appleseed by
WINNER, Lambda Literary Award "You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine" is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling novel. Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the "rez," and his former life, to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's world is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages--and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life. Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.
Emily recommends: Jonny Appleseed offers readers a window into the life of a Two-Spirit Indigenous person preparing to return to the reservation for a family member’s funeral. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about Jonny’s years growing up “Indigiqueer” in an environment where that identity was met with mixed reactions. Between these memories, we get glimpses of the main character in the city where he now lives and does sex work to pay the bills. This novel is meandering and messy, full of both agony and ecstasy.
The Night Watchman by Susan recommends: Louise Erdrich is an amazingly prolific author! Throughout her long career, she has steadily won at least 25 prestigious awards for her poetry and fiction. In 2021, her novel The Night Watchman was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The story is a fictionalized account of the U.S. government's very real efforts around 1953 to dissolve the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, the tribe in which Erdrich and her family are enrolled. This governmental move was part of the so-called Indian Termination policy (1953-1968), a movement that aimed to do away with tribes and tribal identity and force indigenous people to move away from reservations and their communities to seek work in cities. The novel tells the moving story of Erdrich's grandfather's efforts in resisting this annihilation. Spoiler alert: Here, here, and here
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Katie recommends Poet Warrior: A Memoir by the prolific Joy Harjo. An author, poet, musician, and multi-award winner, Harjo served as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States (the first Native American to be appointed to the title) and completed an impressive three terms in that role. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, themes such as self identity, social justice, and art are common in her works. Poet Warrior moves gracefully between section of poetry, prose, and song as Harjo shares her "poet warrior" journey. Readers will enjoy her candidness when speaking about hardship while also resonating with messages on hope, community, and fulfillment.
The Seed Keeper by
A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato--where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited. On a winter's day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband's farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron--women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools. Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors. Honors for The Seed Keeper: A Book Riot "Best Book of 2021" A BuzzFeed "Best Book of Spring 2021" A Bustle "Most Anticipated Debut Novel of 2021 A Bon Appetit "Best Summer 2021 Read A Thrillist "Best New Book of 2021" A Books Are Magic "Most Anticipated Book of 2021" A Minneapolis Star Tribune "Book to Look Forward to in 2021" A Daily Beast "Best Summer 2021 Read"
Emily recommends: Readers who enjoy novels that tell the story of a family over the span of centuries will love this book. The Seed Keeper primarily follows Rosalie Iron Wing as she is put into the foster care system and faces cruelty as an Indigenous minority in an overwhelmingly white Midwestern community. Having lost her parents and most connections to her ancestry, Rosalie is adrift, but manages to find her way back to her Indigenous roots.
