Explore Native American Heritage Month 2024
Native American Folkways: Presented by Historic Cold Spring Village
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 07:00 PM | Explore From Home – on Zoom
Saturday, November 16, 2024 11:00 AM | Bridgewater branch – Meeting Room ABC
Hybrid Book Discussion: “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 06:30 PM | Warren Township branch – Meeting Room
Children’s and Teen Nonfiction
“The Grandfathers Speak: Native American Folk Tales of the Lenapé People” collected and written by Hìtakonanuʼlaxk
Twenty-four gracefully told and authentically narrated folk tales of the Lenapé people, written by the chief of the Lenapé Nation.
“Indigenous America” by Liam McDonald
This edition of the True History series looks at the story taught of America’s ‘discovery’ by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But the history of Native Americans in the United States goes back tens of tens of thousands of years prior to Columbus’s and other colonizers’ arrivals. So, what’s the true history?
“Indigenous Ingenuity: A Celebration of Traditional North American Knowledge? by Deidre Havrelock and Edward Kay
From transportation to civil engineering, hunting technologies to astronomy, and architecture to agriculture, Indigenous Ingenuity is an unforgettable introduction to STEM fields, featuring interactive activities, recipes, and science experiments.
“Indiginerds:Tales from Modern Indigenous Life” edited by Alina Pete
Featuring an all-Indigenous creative team, this graphic anthology is an exhilarating celebration collecting 11 stories about Indigenous people balancing traditional ways of knowing with modern pop culture.
“What Your Ribbon Skirt Means to Me: Deb Haaland’s Historic Inauguration” by Alexis Celeste Bunte
A picture book homage to community and contemporary Native pride, intimately set in the comfort of an urban Native community center that is celebrating the inauguration of Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior on March 18, 2021.
Picture Book
“A Family Tree” by Staci Lola Drouillard
Chronicles the changes brought upon a beloved family tree that must be uprooted and planted on new land.
“It’s Pow Wow Time” by Martha Troian
Bineshii learns to dance at his first powwow.
“Loaf the Cat Goes to the Powwow” by Nicolas DeShaw
A young boy goes to dance in his first powwow, and his curious cat follows him to see what all the excitement is about.
“This Land” by Ashely Fairbanks
This engaging primer about native lands invites kids to trace history and explore their communities.
“When We Gather: = Ostadahlisiha: A Cherokee Tribal Feast” by Andrea L. Rogers
One Cherokee child celebrates the family tradition of gathering wild onions for a big community meal, a significant tradition among several southeastern tribes.
Children’s and Tween Fiction
“Jo Jo Makoons” by Dawn Quigley
Jo Jo Makoons Azure is a spirited 7-year-old who moves through the world a little differently than anyone else on her Ojibwe reservation.
“Mascot” by Charles Waters and Traci Sorrell
Six eighth graders outside Washington, DC, navigate through conflict and division focused on their school district’s Native American mascot.
“On a Wing and a Tear” by Cynthia L. Smith
Close friends Melanie (Muscogee-Odawa) and Ray (Cherokee-Seminole) join Grampa Charlie Halfmoon on a road trip from Chicago to Macon, Georgia, to bring Great-Grandfather Bat, a living legend, to a historic game, facing adventure, danger and a hair-raising mystery along the way.
“The Storyteller” by Brandon Hobson
Ziggy’s mother disappeared ten years ago, one of the many Native women who have mysteriously gone missing, and Ziggy believes a secret cave may hold the key–so with his sister, Moon, and friends Alice and Corso, he sets out to find the cave and solve the mystery of his family’s origins.
“We Still Belong” by Christine Day
Wesley’s hopeful plans for Indigenous Peoples’ Day (and asking her crush to the dance) go all wrong–until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family and community at the intertribal powwow.
Teen Fiction
“The Art Thieves” by Andrea L. Rogers
In 2052, Stevie, a Cherokee girl working at a museum in Texas, with the world in a constant cycle of drought and superstorm, ice and fire, discovers it’s about to get a whole lot worse when a mysterious boy from the future arrives and tells her what’s to come.
“Harvest House” by Cynthia Leitich Smith
When strange things start happening at night near a new, supposedly haunted, rural attraction, including a creepy man stalking young Indigenous women, Hughie Wolfe and his friends set out to discover the truth in order to protect themselves and their community.
“My Good Man” by Eric Gansworth
When a mysterious assault lands the brother of his mother’s late boyfriend in the hospital, Brian, a twenty-something Indigenous reporter, must pick up the threads of a life he’s abandoned, returning to the Tuscarora reservation to discover the truth.
“Rez Ball” by Byron Graves
When the varsity basketball team members take him under their wing, Tre Brun, representing his Ojibwe reservation, steps into his late brother’s shoes as star player but soon learns he can’t mess up — not on the court, not in school and not in love.
“Warrior Girl Unearthed” by Angeline Boulley
With the rising number of missing Indigenous women, her family’s involvement in a murder investigation, and grave robbers profiting off her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry takes matters into her own hands to solve the mystery and reclaim her people’s inheritance.
Adult titles, fiction and nonfiction
“By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land” by Rebecca Nagle
An award-winning reporter and member of the Cherokee Nation recounts the generations-long fight for tribal sovereignty in Eastern Oklahoma and the 1990s murder case that led the Supreme Court to reaffirm native rights to the land.
“The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America” by James L. Swanson
A popular historian brings to life a forgotten chapter in American history: the deadly confrontation between Native Americans and colonists in Massachusetts in 1704, which led to one of the greatest sagas of adventure, survival, sacrifice, family, honor and faith ever told in North America.
“Fire Exit” by Morgan Talty
Consumed by a long-held secret about his daughter across the river on the Penobscot Reservation, Charles Lamosway grapples with his past, a lost love and the burdens of family as he searches for redemption. as he searches for redemption.
“Indian Burial Ground” by Nick Medina
A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of “Sisters of the Lost Nation.”
“Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day” by Kaitlin B. Curtice
Popular Indigenous author Kaitlin Curtice argues that resistance isn’t just for professional activists but for every human who longs to see their neighbors’ holistic flourishing.
“Native Nations: A Millennium in North America” by Kathleen Duval
An award-winning historian tells the story of the Native nations, from the rise of ancient cities to the present, reframing North American history with Indigenous power and sovereignty at its center and showing how the influence of Native peoples remained a constant and will continue far into the future.
“Our Way: A Parallel History: An Anthology of Native History, Reflection, and Story” edited by Julie Cajune
A collaboration of Native scholars representing more than ten Indigenous nations, sharing their histories and their cultures. A comprehensive resource restoring the histories of Indigenous Peoples and their nations to their rightful place in the story of America.
“The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained” by Stanley Milford, Jr.
A Navajo Ranger recounts his experiences investigating paranormal and unexplained phenomena within the Navajo Nation, blending his heritage with his law enforcement training to provide a chilling and factual perspective on cases ranging from mysterious livestock mutilations to sightings of cryptids and unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America” by Matika Wilbur
A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes.
“Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange
Tracing the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 to the aftermath of Orvil Red Feather’s shooting, Opal tries to hold her family together while Orvil becomes emotionally reliant on prescription medications, and his younger brother, suffering from PTSD, secretly enacts blood rituals to connect to his Cheyenne heritage.