Omakayas, an Ojibwa girl, lives on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. We follow her life throughout the seasons. There is joy but also hardship, especially after white traders bring smallpox to the island. This is the first in a wonderful series that includes The Game of Silence (2005), The Porcupine Year (2008), and Chickadee (2012).

American Indian Youth Literature Award
American Indians in Children’s Literature’s Top Ten Books Recommended for Elementary School.
Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Read

As a young boy, Black Elk’s visions were important to his people. This biography shows how they connected to the circle of life as he grew up. He became known as a healing medicine man. Black Elk fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn as a twelve-year-old and, later in life, had a role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices
Orbis Pictus Award

Buffalo Bird Girl was a member of the Hidatsa people in the prairie land now known as North Dakota. “This name has brought me fortune, for the buffalo have a strong heart and the birds of the air have a good spirit.” In this biography, we learn Buffalo Bird Girl’s role in the community, the community’s life during the changing seasons, and how this way of life disappeared once she grew up to become Buffalo Bird Woman.

Virginia is the daughter of a minister in South Dakota. She needs a winter coat and is anxious for donation boxes from the eastern part of the country to arrive. She spots the perfect coat but has been taught to wait until others have been served. Unfortunately, her coat is taken before she has a chance to claim it. Her patience is rewarded on Christmas Eve. The story itself is inspired by the author’s childhood growing up on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation.

American Indian Youth Literature Award.
Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices

Martha Tom, a Choctaw girl in the 1800s, crosses the river known as Bok Chitto. There is a secret series of stones just below the water’s surface that the Choctaws built. She meets a young African-American slave named Little Mo. Martha Tom and other Choctaw women help lead Little Mo’s family across the river to freedom.

American Indian Youth Literature Award
American Library Association Notable Children’s Book

Crow warriors were expected to accomplish four “coups” or dangerous deeds to become a chief. Joseph was able to accomplish this through his experiences in the U.S. Army during World War II while fighting in Germany. In this autobiography, Joseph also talks about growing up on a reservation in Montana and the hardships of attending a white Baptist school where he was taught to shed his heritage.

American Indian Youth Literature Award

Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices. Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve collected (and contributed) thirteen original and tribal poems. The focus is on childhood experiences for American Indians throughout the years and includes titles such as “Zuni Corn Ceremony,” “Cradle Song,” “Dakota Elk Song,” and “Osage Prayer Before First Buffalo Hunt.”

This pourquoi story takes place when there was only one man and one woman in the world. The two quarreled and the woman left the man. The Sun sends down a variety of berries to slow her down. When strawberries appear and “glow like fire in the grass,” the woman stops to taste them. This allows her husband to catch up and reconcile with her. The strawberries remind us that "friendship and respect are as sweet as the taste of ripe, red berries."

Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of the Social Studies.

Many aspects of nature, including water, animals, trees, sun, moon, and stars are given due respect. The text is based on the “Thanksgiving Address” an Iroquois "message of peace and appreciation of Mother Earth and all her inhabitants."

Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Read

Guests by Michael Dorris. Hyperion, 1994. Ages 9-12.
Moss, a 17th Century Algonquin boy living in what is now Massachusetts, is angry that his father has invited white men to their annual harvest feast. He ventures into the forest, owing his grandfather a new story. He emerges from this short rite-of-passage trip with a more mature outlook.

Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices

Eleven-year-old Sonny discovers family secrets that lead to the knowledge that his family is Abenaki and not white. Part of the reason for this hidden aspect is that the family fled what is known as the Vermont Eugenics Project, a forced sterilization project signed into law in the 1930s.

American Indian Youth Literature Award
American Indians in Children’s Literature’s Top Ten Books Recommended for Elementary School
Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices

Jenna is a member of the Creek Nation in Oklahoma in contemporary times. This picture book shows her efforts to collect “jingles” for her dress so she can participate in the traditional jingle dance. She goes from house to house and collects rows of jingles from different women, including her grandmother, who ask her to dance for them.

Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices

This picture book biography follows the Shoshone girl who was kidnapped and then raised by the Hidatsa. Sacagawea was given in marriage to a French trapper. Sacagawea, her husband, and their son join the Lewis and Clark expedition from Missouri to the west coast. She turned out to be a valuable member of the group.

International Reading Association Choices

Walnut has trouble becoming a hunter because of his poor eyesight. He is taught to develop his other senses and earns the name Sees Behind Trees. He then goes on a life-changing journey as a companion with an elder, Gray Fire.

American Indians in Children’s Literature’s Top Ten Books Recommended for Elementary School
International Reading Association Choices

The thirteen scales on turtle’s back represent the thirteen moon cycles. A different name is given to each moon based on a variety of American Indian legends through a series of short poems.

Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Choices
International Reading Association Choices