THE List--AICL's "Best Books of 2018"

This is the BEST "Best of..." list.

It's the one everyone should follow and make sure they have these books in their collections. (Check the lists from other years too!) These books are honestly vetted. We appreciate that this list is still not complete. We are still catching up on our 2018 reading and reviewing too!

We greatly honor each book and author listed. Thank you for your work on behalf of Native youth. Your work means we are not invisible and our lives have value. Our stories deserve to be told, and enrich all readers, in different formats and genres.

SHONABISH!

Comments

APPLE IN THE MIDDLE, by Dawn Quigley--Review by Alexis, Age 18

*Warning: There are spoilers because I discuss the book, but I don’t give away important plot points. There is also use of the n-word. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I was really drawn to the image on Dawn Quigley’s APPLE IN THE MIDDLE (AITM) before the book was even published (August 2018). The image of a contemporary Native teen, who is not ridiculously glamorous, but pretty and real (love those earrings!), got stuck in my mind immediately. I thought, ‘I want to know who this girl is,’ and why there’s a pink house in the background. I am happy to say that the book more than lived up to my expectations. It’s not just a well-written, enjoyable book I admired from a distance. In some ways, I feel I am that girl on the cover, fifteen-year old Apple Starkington. Even though the circumstances of our lives are very different. Like Apple, I have a White father and a Native mother. My mom is Florida Seminole, while Apple’s mother was Turtle Mountain ...

I CAN MAKE THIS PROMISE, by Christine Day--a review by Ashleigh, 13

This is the kind of book you can't put down. But you don't want to read it all at once either--because then it will be over! It's a novel I related to personally, and I think many readers will enjoy it, young and old. The more I look at this cover by Michaela Goade --all the details--the more I love it! The Upper Skagit author, Christine Day, has a "Dear Reader" note at the beginning of the ARC that is very heartfelt. She talks about being a graduate student and going on a trip "to visit a Suquamish Elder, the Suquamish Museum, and the historic site of Old Man House." She remembers the exact date--January 21. 2017--because it was the same day as the Women's March. She talks about seeing "Instagram flooded with pictures from the protests," while she ate breakfast and listened to professors. ...

INDIAN NO MORE, by Charlene Willing McManis with Traci Sorell: a Review by Ashleigh, 13

INDIAN NO MORE, by Charlene Willing McManis with Traci Sorell is one of the best books I've ever read. Thank you to Tu Books and Stacy L. Whitman for sending @ofglades the uncorrected proof to review. At first, I was sorry it wasn't an audio book, because it is sometimes easier for me to listen to books. But just after reading the first chapter, "The Walking Dead"--SNAP!, the voice of ten year-old Regina Petit was in my head. It stayed there till the last page, and it's still talking to me now. Regina says, "My family was Umpqua. I was Umpqua. That's just how it was." But it gets messy fast. She has always lived on the Grand Ronde reservation, thirty miles from Salem, Oregon, but Congress passes a bill that says that the Umpqua (and other tribes in Oregon) have been terminated. Regina's grandmother Chich tells her, "The President has just signed the bill from Congress saying that we're no longer Indian." But before that we ...

Indigo's Bookshelf: Voices of Native Youth

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