Smoking Hot New Books

Dear Book Lovers

I must report that wonderful books by Native writers are flooding our store. On the young adult front, Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, explores an Anishinaabe community through the voice of a fierce, funny young woman who 'began as a secret, and then a scandal.' We're also excited about Ancestor Approved, a rich trove of Intertribal stories for kids, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, as well as Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe and Cherie Dimaline's Empire of Wild. Eric Gansworth's Apple, Skin to the Core, is like all of his work both cerebral and passionately of this earth.

To Be a Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers by Winona LaDuke, is a call to join the movement battling world ending fossil fuel projects, currently Line 3. This is powerful, straightforward, essential work in the voice of a master storyteller fighting for everyone's future. American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá with an introduction by Layli Long Soldier, illuminates the life of an extraordinary spirit, a Lakota woman whose voice is both historical and contemporary. Brandon Hobson's The Removed grapples with historical removal and loss in a Cherokee family.

What a wealth and swirl of books! And there are more. I'll be adding to this list.

A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by Joy Harjo and bearing the lovely title, When the Light of the World was Subdued Our Songs Came Through rests at my bedside because it contains worlds of thought, sorrows, and visions of power and solace.

It is late, and I'm going to open this volume now. Good night dear book people!

Read on, stay careful, be ready for spring.

Louise