Here is another one where it is totally possible that I will do a great job with the 2021 reading, because it hasn't happened yet, and sometimes I have optimism that borders on delusions of grandeur.
As it was, the relevant books were read between October 11th, 2019 and December 16th, 2020. I was reading around the correct times. I probably could have done reasonable write-ups for at least 2019, but I was not blogging a lot at the end of 2020. It was probably more that the reading felt incomplete.
This is also an area where the lack of inter-library loan has greater impact; the amount of books on Native American history or issues that I want to read and that are specifically in the Washington County library system has less overlap. They are better for some of my other areas. But again, a lot of the books I end up wanting to read are Canadian. Canada has very similar colonization issues, but the books published by their university presses are less likely to end up on library shelves in the United States.
In this case, there are about 26 books that I will need to request through inter-library loan. However, I have gotten my second ILL book since the library reopening, and things look possible again. If I wait until November, will I be able to get them all requested and read that month? For sure no, especially as only five can be requested at a time.
However, I don't have to read them all in one month. I will sort that out.
I should note that I also have six URLs to check out for more books and authors to consider, but that will represent a transition to focusing more on contemporary works, and not just the history. It is part of the plane, but that is for 2022.
So, here are the books that did get read.
Children's books:
Young Water Protectors by Aslan Tudor, Fry Bread: A Native American Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, Birdsong by Julie Flett, When We Are Kind by Monique Gray Smith but illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt, When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton and illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard.
Great pictures in Fry Bread that cast a wide and inclusive net. Aslan Tudor has been a young water protector, so that could be very empowering for some older kids, to know that they can participate and tell their own story. You may remember the Fentons, a mother/daughter-in-law team, from Margaret's stories of her time in residential school. I had missed one of the books previously. Kindness is a more obvious theme in When We Are Kind, but also an important part of Birdsong.
Young Adult:
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day and Bear Walker by Joseph Bruchac.
I ended up really enjoying both of these. There were issues of friendship and family, with some heartache but plenty of happiness and connection and growth. It occurs to me that for adults who want to read more diverse novels but are not sure where to start, YA books can be a great point of entry.
Comic books:
Anthology One by Native Realities, This Place: 150 Years Retold by multiple authors, and Marvel Voices: Indigenous Voices #1 by Jeffrey Veregge and others.
This Place was the award winner and deserved it. Not only were the individual segments good but they were tied together well. At the same time, most of those seem unlikely to be parts of continuing stories, which is not the case for the other two. Currently I am most interested in seeing more on Dani Moonstar and Jonesy.
Adult Fiction:
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday.
The funny thing about this is that I really meant to read Medicine River this time around, but I got the titles mixed up. I would have read it sooner or later anyway. It is definitely more poetic, but also harder to be sure of how anything will turn out.
Non-fiction:
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz and You're So Fat: Exploring Ojibwe Discourse by Roger Spielmann.
You're So Fat is pretty thoroughly a linguistics book. While it is not totally inaccessible for non-linguists, it can be challenging. There is nonetheless a lot of interesting room for thought on the connection between the language we have and the thoughts we think, and it is also why I was familiar with "culturally relevant teaching" when that came up in the school board elections.
As for the history book, it was great. It is a better addition than Zinn, and could work well with Lerone Bennett Jr.'s Before the Mayflower.
There you have it. It's not a lot to show for two years, but for one year's reading it's fairly respectable.
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2019/09/native-american-heritage-month-2018.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2019/09/native-american-heritage-month-2018_17.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2019/09/native-american-heritage-month-2018_19.html
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