What We are Reading During Native American and Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Month

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The 2026 Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature
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Thursday evening, February 26 & Friday, February 27, 2026
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Proposals Due by December 5, 2025
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Meet our Contributor:

Stephanie Branson is a fierce advocate for young adult literature and authentic writing pedagogy, with a focus on fostering student engagement through diverse text selections. She has been a literacy leader as a high school English teacher, district-level learning facilitator, and curriculum writer in one of Texas’s largest public school districts for the past 13 years. Stephanie earned her undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University in the Geaux Teach English cohort and her graduate degree from the University of North Texas in Literacy Curriculum and Instruction. She has presented at both the National Council for Teachers of English and the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. She can be reached at [email protected]. Please connect! ​

What We are Reading During Native American and Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Month by Stephanie Branson

“We gratefully acknowledge the Native Peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.”
—NMAI Land Acknowledgment

I have always looked forward to autumn and the month of November. It is a month of falling leaves, crisp air, and family gatherings that leave nostalgic memories in their wake. In my adulthood, I have come to honor November for a deeper reason: it is a time to celebrate and reflect upon my Native American heritage. My family always knew we had Indigenous lineage, but with DNA tracing and intergenerational family research, our roots have become richly intertwined with the Pacific Northwestern Yakama Nation through Canada and beyond.
 
My grandmother was a “rez kid” in the Washington state nation until she was adopted off of the reservation by her family. Through careful, deep research and legal file requests, we were able to uncover her whole story; a story that deserves its own telling. But that is a writing for another day. Today, I want to share some of my favorite YA novels and nonfiction books to celebrate Native American and Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Month. It is such a joy to be able to lift these voices up and celebrate the stories they tell. 

​Every November, since its foundation in 1990, our country acknowledges the contributions, history, and culture of Native and Indigenous peoples across the Americas. We come together to reflect on the beauty of storytelling, vibrant cultural showcases, and reverent art exhibits. In the vibrance of celebration, there is also solemn reflection. As we look back, we grieve communities lost to colonialism, genocide, displacement, and cultural erasure. Above all, we recognize that Indigenous cultures are not relics of the past, but living and evolving communities in our present time. 

Growing up, my access to these perspectives in texts were little to none, at least to my younger knowledge; and if you could find texts of any kind they tended to be written by non-Native authors and insensitive to the cultures they were representing. My first forays into Native American and Indigenous novels were Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Elizabeth George Speare's The Sign of the Beaver. I am grateful for these novels that first guided me on my journey as a reader exploring cultural identity. 

Today, I am honored to share the authentic voices and beautifully crafted narratives of contemporary Native American, First Peoples, and Indigenous authors whose works continue to expand and enrich our literary landscape. These authors’ works honor richly embedded traditions while deepening and diversifying the modern landscape of Young Adult literature.

​One of my personal favorite texts is the dystopian novel, The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Dimaline, a writer and a member of the Georgian Bay Métis Council of the Métis Nation of Ontario, weaves a beautiful tale of love, perseverance, resistance, loss, survival, and most of all, hope. Defying the bounds of typical YA dystopian fiction, The Marrow Thieves guides the reader through the complexities and tragedies of colonialism and genocide of Indigenous peoples. I was captivated by the storytelling, character relationships, and my own connection to the First Nations in Canada. As a continuation, Hunting by Stars is a brilliant continuation of the world Dimaline builds in her magical dystopia. 

​Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley is another one of my favorite novels that does not squarely fit into any singular genre, aside from realistic fiction. It is part romance, part crime thriller and wholly a narrative about cultural belonging. The author’s profound connection to her culture lies at the heart of this book, illuminating every turn of the plot and infusing the story with its full depth and meaning. Her depiction of the Ojibwe culture, teachings, and traditions are precise and allow non-Native readers to truly understand the intricacies of the story. This is a book beyond storytelling; it is a lyrical commentary on connection, micro-aggressions, and calls to action. 

​​I truly adore Eric Gansworth’s collection of YA novels. They are poignant, creative, and are crafted with such nuance and lyricism that they are just a joy to read. I always walk away having learned more about native nations, cultural heritage, and the rich traditions of the Onondaga Nation. Gansworth, an enrolled member of Onondaga Nation and descendent of Tuscarora Nation himself, wrote If I Ever Get Out of Here, and Apple: Skin-to-the-Core: two profoundly moving and inspirational works that explore identity, culture, and resilience. If I Ever Get Out of Here follows Lewis “Shoe” Blake, a Tuscarora Indian reservation teen navigating the challenges of coming into his adolescence on and off the reservation. Gansworth weaves humor, music (specifically The Beatles), and complexities of teen boys into a story about real friendship, belonging, and cultural understanding. 

Apple: Skin to the Core, a memoir-in-verse by Gansworth, reclaims the slur against some Native and Indigenous peoples of “apple:” red on the outside, white on the inside. Through this memoir, he transforms the apple into a symbol of strength and power shattering the connotations of the slur and reclaiming the power of his identity. Gansworth writes his story through pictures and poetic verse in a way that is both innovative and truly heartbreaking. This novel is a testament to the power of one’s resilience and reclamation of one’s self though story and the brutal history of our county’s oppression of Native and Indigenous peoples. 

The nonfiction text, Indigenous Ingenuity by Deidre Havrelock (Cree) and Edward Kay is a remarkable study of the contributions that have been brought to our society by Native and Indigenous peoples. This book is a fascinating analysis of the innovation, science, and creativity embedded in our society from Native and Indigenous cultures across North America. The authors blend historical accounts with technological advancements, showing how knowledge, tradition, and systems have long impacted a variety of fields we engage with today, such as engineering, sustainability, and astronomy. This text is a celebration of the culture that is a foundational component of who we are as a society today. It frames the generations of knowledge and observation that we have taken from these communities with reverence and beauty. 

I wanted to end this recommendation list with perhaps the most moving work I have read. American Sunrise by Joy Harjo, 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States and member of Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is an authentically vivid account of generational history from an ancestral home due to the Indian Removal Act. This recollection is told through a series of poetry and prose that defies genre bounds. Perhaps it is my newer understanding of my own roots, but I felt the sadness, grief, and remembrance in these poems deeply. Harjo’s writing sings with memory and resilience providing penetrating and powerful verse of survival, erasure, and transcendence. Each poem and mixed-media form in this collection feels like a whispered prayer of reflection. Harjo seamlessly weaves the historical view of the Trail of Tears with her autobiographical experiences. She invites readers to remember, reflect upon, and internalize the power of poetry on our world. She shows that we can use this form to recount events that are painful and turn them into something beautiful. 

“Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren’t our lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land.” -Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise, “Bless This Land”

These stories, rooted in history and alive with strength and resistance, invite readers to see the world through perspectives that have been sidelined too often today. We are transported into storytelling and history through Native and Indigenous eyes: eyes that remember, eyes that teach, eyes that imagine, and eyes that reclaim. Each text we read from a Native or Indigenous perspective reminds us that literature is not just entertainment or a passive time spent. It is a vessel for cultural reconciliation and truth-telling. As educators and readers, we carry the responsibility to seek out and elevate these voices. We must ensure these voices are uplifted within the classrooms and beyond.
 
This November, and always, may we read these stories with intention, teach with reverence, and honor the voices that came before and continue to shape our cultural landscape of who we are as a society and who we may become.