November is Native American Heritage Month, so I thought I would highlight the Mead Bookish Bingo Challenge to “read a book written by a NAFNIP (Native, Aboriginal, First Nations, Indigenous People) author”.
Native American Heritage Month is a time for all of us to reflect on and celebrate the contributions, histories and cultures of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Island communities in North America. For this article, I would like to celebrate the literary works of a few indigenous authors featured in the Monarch Library System collection.
Joy Harjo is the 2019 Poet Laureate of the United States and a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Carole Lindstrom is the author of the New York Times bestselling and Caldecott Award-winning We Are Water Protectors. She is Anishinabe/Métis and is a proud member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe Indians.
Michaela Goade is the Caldecott Award-winning illustrator of We Are Water Protectors. She is the first Native American to win the award. She is of the Tlingit and Haida tribes.
Darcie Little Badger is an oceanographer and the author of Elatsoe, selected by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 Fantasy books of all time. She is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas.
Note: Elatsoe will be discussed by the Book to Art Club in January.
Stephen Graham Jones is an award-winning author who has been honored with both the Ray Bradbury Award for Science Fiction and the Bram Stoker Award for Horror. He is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana.
N. Scott Momaday is author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning House Made of Dawn. He is a member of the Kiowa people.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author and American Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology, and Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She is member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
If you’d like to learn more about Native American heritage, I encourage you to visit the National Congress of American Indians website. There are also wonderful virtual exhibits available for you to view at the Native American Heritage website.
Note: Author details are courtesy of Wikipedia.
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