Friday, December 07, 2018

AICL's Best Books of 2018

We are starting AICL's "Best Books of 2018" today (December 7) and will update it as we read other books published in 2018. Please share this page with teachers, librarians, parents--anyone, really--who is interested in books about Native peoples. As we come across additional books published in 2018 and as we finish reading and writing up reviews, we will add them to this list. If you know of ones we might want to consider, please let us know! For now, a partial list of to-be-read books by Native writers is at the bottom. 


BY NATIVE WRITERS OR ILLUSTRATORS

Comics and Graphic Novels

  • Henry, Gordon and Elizabeth LaPensée. (2018). Not [Just] [An] Other. Makwa Enewed. United States. (review in process)

Board Books

Picture Books

For Middle Grades
  • Boney, Roy. (2018). "Tell It In Your Own Way" in We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, edited by Cheryl and Wade Hudson. Crown Books for Young Readers. United States.
  • Quigley, Dawn. (2018). Apple in the Middle. North Dakota State University Press. United States
  • Smith, Monique Gray. (2018). Lucy & Lola. McKellar & Martin. Canada
  • Tingle, Tim. (2018). When A Ghost Talks, Listen. Roadrunner Press. United States. (review in process).
  • Tingle, Tim. (2018). Trust Your Name. 7th Generation. United States (review in process).
  • Van Camp, Richard. (2018). When We Play Our Drums, They Sing! McKellar & Martin. Canada

For High School
  • Day, Christine. (2018). "Unexpected Pursuits: Embracing My Indigeneity & Creativity" in Our Stories, Our Voices. Simon and Schuster. United States. 
  • Erdrich, Heid E., ed. (2018). New Poets of Native Nations. Graywolf Press. United States.
  • Gansworth, Eric. (2018). Give Me Some Truth. Scholastic. United States.
  • Gansworth, Eric. (2018). "Don't Pass Me By" in Fresh Ink: An Anthology edited by Lamar Giles. Random House Books. United States. (review in process)
  • Jones, Adam Garnet. (2018). Fire Song. Annick Press. Canada (review in process)
  • Smith, Cynthia Leitich. (2018). Hearts Unbroken. Candlewick. United States.
  • Wylls, Kristine. (2018) "Ballad of Weary Daughters" in Unbroken, edited by Marieke Nijkamp. 

BY WRITERS WHO ARE NOT NATIVE

Comics and Graphic Novels

Board Books

Picture Books
  • Morales, Yuyi. (2018). Dreamers. Holiday House. United States. 

For Middle Grades

For High School



BOOKS BY NATIVE WRITERS THAT ARE IN OUR TO-BE-READ STACK!
These include books intended for the adult market, but that we might think can be read by older teens. 
  • Francis, Lee and Alvitre Weshoyot, Sixkiller 
  • Hobson, Brandon. Where the Dead Sit Talking
  • Mailhot, Terese. Heart Berries: A Memoir
  • Orange, Tommy. There, There
  • Rice, Waubgeshig. Moon of the Crusted Snow
  • Robinson, Eden. Trickster Drift (book two in her Trickster trilogy)
  • Whitehead, Joshua. Jonny Appleseed


BOOKS BY NON-NATIVE WRITERS THAT ARE IN OUR TO-BE-READ STACK!
This list include books intended for the adult market, but that we might think can be read by older teens. 
  • Warner, Andrea. Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography 

3 comments:

Mercedes Siler said...

Hi! I'm a writer and I saw Ms. Reese's name come up on Twitter through current events in the writing community and followed the trail to here.

I'm also a homeschooler teaching third grade and am having a REALLY hard time with the accuracy and honesty of the books in our curriculum about the indigenous peoples of the Americas starting from Columbus and ending at the Civil War. I was wondering if you have or know of curated lists by grade level or subject? I am ready to do the work myself, but I thought if it was already done and made and ready to go, I'd be foolish not to ask. Thank you for all you are doing.

Debbie Reese said...

By topic, no, but by grade level--what you're looking at on this page is what we do, each year. https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/p/best-books.html

Specific by grade level... we don't do that. There's too much variation in what a given child can read, and, who might be doing the reading, how, what context, etc.

Mercedes Siler said...

Thank you for your quick reply! I literally followed your blogger link and found your book AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE and put it in my Amazon cart. For fiction I'll try to figure out the content and why the chose it and try to find comparable #ownvoices books. (The book that spurred me to action was a book called Walk the Rim that made us kind of wonder if it was a biased and outdated narrative. I haven't done a deep dive on it yet.)
Thank you so much.