Novels

Marcie R. Rendon’s follow-up to Murder on the Red River finds Cash helping Sheriff Wheaton solve a murder that has likeness to the cases of missing and murdered Native women.

Cash is off to a local college with the help of Wheaton, who wants her to take hold of her life and aspire to better things. At Moorhead State she sees that people talk a lot but mostly about nothing, not like the men in the fields she’s known all her life, who hold the rich topsoil in their hands, talk fertilizer and weather and prices on the Grain Exchange.

In between classes and hauling beets, drinking beer and shooting pool, she begins to dream of the Cities and blonde Scandinavian girls calling for help.

Reviews
"Rendon is a natural storyteller and a consummate writer, and we’re indebted to Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso for bringing the unforgettable Cash Blackbear to life. There isn’t a protagonist in recent fiction with the bearing of Rendon’s creation, and we’re the better for knowing her."—Jeffrey Mannix

"I won’t recount the terror, the drama, and the bravery of what follows. You can read the book yourself. The ending, I’ll just say, is deeply satisfying. Rendon has been working for years in the prisons with women who are incarcerated for prostitution, soliciting, and other offenses. Teaching them to tell their stories and access their inner writing voice. She’s able to convey the savagery of the system, what it does to women and their families, how deeply it is connected to poverty, and how it reaches into white rural and suburban areas as well as communities of color." —Ann Markusen, Grand Rapids Herald-Review

"Darn that Marcie Rendon but she did it again. She wrote another book featuring Renee “Cash” Blackbear which invariably led to non-stop, compulsive reading and thoughts about the 19-year-old protagonist...This is a good book. If you read it, block out uninterrupted time. It’s hard to put down."—Deborah Locke,The Circle News: Native American News and Arts

"The vivid writing and keen eye keep the pages turning and readers hoping for another book in this series."—Wendy J. Fox, Buzzfeed

"Rendon's refreshing sequel to 2017's Murder on the Red River...When [Cash] hears about a missing coed, she contacts [Sheriff] Wheaton. Since they previously worked together successfully on a murder, Wheaton trusts Cash’s sharp instincts and asks for her help in solving the case...Rendon, herself a member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation, highlights the plight of Native Americans who were forcibly adopted by whites and Cash’s discomfort in a land that is and is not hers. Readers will look forward to Cash’s next outing."—Publishers Weekly

"In her second outing, Cash Blackbear goes off to college and finds herself embroiled in the mystery of a missing classmate. 'I'm not used to folks treating me like I'm stupid,' says Cash. But Moorhead State is another world, one slow to disclose the secrets of its initiated."—Kirkus Reviews

Series Information
This is the second book in the Cash Blackbear Mystery series from author Marcie Rendon.  

Additional Information
336 pages | 5.51" x 8.26" | Paperback

Indigenous Voices Award winner Cole Pauls returns with a robust collection of stories that celebrate the cultural practices and experiences of Dene and Arctic peoples. Gathering Pauls's comics from magazines, comic festivals and zine making workshops, these comics are his most personal work yet. You'll learn stories about the author's family, racism and identity, Yukon history, winter activities, Southern Tutchone language lessons and cultural practices. Have you ever wanted to learn how to Knuckle Hop? or to acknowledge and respect the Indigenous land you’re on? Or how to be an ally to Indigenous people? Well, gather around and hear this Kwändǖr! (Story!).

Additional Information
140 pages | 6.50" x 10.00" Paperback

An ambitious feminist anthology chronicling Indigenous rebellions around the world.

In 1930s Bolivia, self-described Anarchist Cholas form a libertarian trade union. In the Northern Highlands of Vietnam, the songs of one girl’s youth lead her to a life of activism. In the Philippines, female elders from Kalinga blaze a trail when pushed into impromptu protest. Equally striking accounts from Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, India, Nepal, Peru and Thailand weave a tapestry of trauma and triumph, shedding light on not-too-distant histories otherwise overlooked.

Indigenous Peoples all over the world have always had to stand their ground in the face of colonialism. While the details may differ, what these stories have in common is their commitment to resistance in a world that puts profit before respect, and western notions of progress before their own. Movements and Moments is an introductory glimpse into how Indigenous Peoples tell these stories in their own words. From Southeast Asia to South America, vibrant communities must grapple with colonial realities to assert ownership over their lands and traditions.

This project was undertaken in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Indonesien in Jakarta. These stories were selected from an open call across 42 countries to spotlight feminist movements and advocacies in the Global South.

Reviews
"The artwork throughout is excellent... Taken together, these shorts carry a cumulative power, offering a heartening reminder of the strength and spirituality within resistance and a potent call to arms against injustice."—Publishers Weekly

“I am grateful for the heart that was poured into these comics, and even more so for the bravery of the people whose stories they tell. This book made me feel a little stronger. It helped me remember some things I had begun to forget.”—Eleanor Davis, The Hard tomorrow

“Movements and Moments is an important collection of unique, vibrant voices that together sing in unison the stories of identity, liberation, determination, and resilience. To finally gain the perspectives of Indigenous women from South America, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania is a powerful, uplifting celebration of communities who have been underrepresented and overlooked for far too long.”—Rina Ayuyang, Blame This on the Boogie

"This anthology is an excellent, engaging historical resource."—ALA Booklist

Educator Information

ABOUT THE PROJECT as shared here: https://www.goethe.de/ins/id/en/kul/kue/mmo.html

"Goethe-Institut's project “Movements and Moments” sheds light on Indigenous feminist activisms from the Global South in the form of comics.

The narratives of feminism are still written from a predominantly white, western perspective. While feminist claims and positions from the Global North are, up to this day, sidelined in a patriarchal mainstream, the same holds true to a much broader extent for feminist movements from the Global South. Little information about these movements and their activists is accessible in large knowledge databases such as Wikipedia, and even in the respective native regions of these feminist activists their achievements are often not archived because resources are too scarce or their demands are not thematized.

Initiated by Goethe-Institut Jakarta, the project “Movements and Moments – Feminist Generations” aims to make visible these hidden biographies and activisms by relating their stories in the highly accessible format of comics. By emphasizing an indigenous feminist perspective, which is often linked to decolonial struggles and emancipatory approaches to sustainability, we wish to shed light on one of the most marginalized, underexposed aspects of feminist protests. On the other hand, this project wants to inquire how these often overlooked struggles might be role models for feminist movements worldwide. By publishing these stories from different continents and bringing them into dialogue with each other, we hope to spark interest in archiving and mediating non-Western feminist endeavors.

In 2019 we launched an open call and received an overwhelming 218 applications from 352 teams and solo artists originating from 42 countries. The jury members—Aua Mendes (Indigenous trans feminist artist from Brazil), Johann Ulrich (German comic publisher), Maya (Goethe-Institut Indonesien), Sonja Eismann (publisher of German feminist periodical Missy Magazine), and Urvashi Butalia (head of Indian feminist publisher Zubaan Books)—selected 16 stories from 14 countries that conveyed major narratives on ecological activism, the fight for education, and the struggle for the rights of LGBTIQA+ people. Two accomplished comic book artists, Amruta Patil from India and Nacha Vollenweider from Argentina, served as the groups’ mentors and accompanied and guided the authors during the process. Some stories will be published in German and English in 2022 through appointed publishers while other stories will be accessible on this website in English and the authors’ native languages."

Additional Information
264 pages | 7.35" x 9.75" | Hardcover

1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.

One Saturday morning, Sheriff Wheaton is called to investigate a pile of rags in a field and finds the body of an Indian man. When Cash dreams about the dead man’s weathered house on the Red Lake Reservation, she knows that’s the place to start looking for answers. Together, Cash and Wheaton work to solve a murder that stretches across cultures in a rural community traumatized by racism, genocide, and oppression.

Reviews
“More of a coming of age story than a mystery … the spare prose-poetry of her descriptions and dialogue is a lot more interesting than anything she has to say about crime or detection.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An appealing 19-year-old heroine, Renee 'Cash' Blackbear, lifts [Marcie] Rendon’s first mystery.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Rendon] is one heck of a mystery novelist. Rendon’s Cash Blackbear books are gripping vehicles that tell broader stories about the historical persecution of American Indians.”—Oprah Daily

Series Information
This is the first book in the Cash Blackbear Mystery series from author Marcie Rendon.

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.52" x 8.22" | Paperback

It's a rare book that can make the tried-and-true genre of the coming-of-age novel seem novel. There are the standard markers of the hero's journey - the trials, the dark night of the soul, the lesson learned. From Printz honor author Eric Gansworth comes My Good Man, a literary tour-de-force sure to turn the genre on its head.

Brian, a 20-something reporter on the Niagara Cascade's City Desk, is navigating life as the only Indigenous writer in the newsroom, being lumped into reporting on stereotypical stories that homogenize his community, the nearby Tuscarora reservation. But when a mysterious roadside assault lands Tim, the brother of Brian's mother's late boyfriend in the hospital, Brian must pick up the threads of a life that he's abandoned.

The resulting narrative takes us through Brian's childhood and slice of life stories on the reservation, in Gansworth's signature blend of crystal sharp, heartfelt literary realist prose.

But perhaps more importantly, it takes us through Brian's attempt to balance himself between Haudenosaunee and American life, between the version of his story that would prize the individual over all else and the version of himself that depends on the entire community's survival.

Reviews
“This masterwork of historical fiction asks whether peaceably straddling the realms of White and Indigenous people is possible. Rich, luxuriant, densely layered prose immerses readers in heartbreaking scenes and poignant dialogue as complex characters explore the confines and joys of male friendship. Riveting, timeless, and indispensable.” -Kirkus Reviews

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 14 to 18.

Young Adult Fiction / Coming of Age / Historical Fiction

Additional Information
400 pages | 5.90" x 9.00" | Hardcover

Three kookums, a man named Crow, two best friends, and a drug dealer . . . twelve-year-old Hunter may be getting out of Red Rock sooner than he hoped.

For Hunter Frank, the summer of ’79 begins with his mother returning home only to collect the last two months’ welfare cheques, leaving her three “fucking half-breeds” to fend for themselves. When his older sister escapes their northern BC town and his brother goes to fight forest fires, Hunter is on his own, with occasional care coming from a trio of elders—his kookums—and companionship from his two best friends.

It’s been a good summer for the young entrepreneur, but the cash in the purple Crown Royal bag hidden in his mattress still isn’t enough to fund his escape from his monstrous mother and the town of Red Rock. As the Labour Day weekend arrives, so does a new friend with old wisdom and a business opportunity that might be just a boy at the crossroads needs. My Indian Summer is the story of a journey to understanding that some villains are also victims, and that while reconciliation may not be possible, survival is.

Reviews
"He breathes life into his characters at their first mention and draws you into the gossamer web of his vibrant storytelling, from which there is no escape other than to read a story through to its end." -Darrel J. McLeod

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback 

An honest look at life in an Indian residential school in the 1950s, and how one indomitable young spirit survived it — 30th anniversary edition.

Seepeetza loves living on Joyaska Ranch with her family. But when she is six years old, she is driven to the town of Kalamak, in the interior of British Columbia. Seepeetza will spend the next several years of her life at an Indian residential school. The nuns call her Martha and cut her hair. Worst of all, she is forbidden to “talk Indian,” even with her sisters and cousins.

Still, Seepeetza looks for bright spots — the cookie she receives at Halloween, the dance practices. Most of all, there are her memories of holidays back at the ranch — camping trips, horseback riding, picking berries and cleaning fish with her mother, aunt and grandmother. Always, thoughts of home make school life bearable.

Based on her own experiences at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, this powerful novel by Nlaka’pamux author Shirley Sterling is a moving account of one of the most blatant expressions of racism in the history of Canada.

Includes a new afterword by acclaimed Cree author Tomson Highway of the Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba.

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 9 to 12.

Key Text Features: afterword, dialogue, journal entries, maps.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.1
Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6
Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

Includes a new afterword by acclaimed Cree author Tomson Highway of the Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba.

Additional Information
128 pages | 5.10" x 7.50"

A remarkable YA love story between two Aboriginal boys -- one who doesn’t want to accept he’s gay, and the boy who comes to live in his house who makes him realize who he is.

It's a hot summer, and life's going all right for Jackson and his family on the Mish. It's almost Christmas, school's out, and he's hanging with his mates, teasing the visiting tourists, avoiding the racist boys in town. Just like every year, Jackson's Aunty and annoying little cousins visit from the city -- but this time a mysterious boy with a troubled past comes with them. As their friendship evolves, Jackson must confront the changing shapes of his relationships with his friends, family and community. And he must face his darkest secret -- a secret he thought he'd locked away for good.

Reviews
"It is, honestly, a book I've been searching for over my whole career as an editor, as well as all my years as a queer reader. I'm not ashamed to say that it made me cry (repeatedly) and awed me with the power of its storytelling." -- David Levithan

"How I wish I had this big-hearted book when I was a teenager. It would've changed my life. Let it change yours." -- Benjamin Law

"A deftly woven tale that is both a raw, unflinching look at the experience of growing up gay and Aboriginal, and a sweet, truly endearing love story you just can't turn away from. This is Own Voices storytelling at its best." -- Holden Sheppard

"Honest. Funny. Beautiful. This book is all the things." -- Gabbie Stroud

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 14+

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.72" x 8.55" | Hardcover

In the third book of her brilliant and captivating Trickster Trilogy, Eden Robinson delivers an explosive, surprising and satisfying resolution.

All Jared Martin had ever wanted was to be normal, which was already hard enough when he had to cope with Maggie, his hard-partying, gun-toting, literal witch of a mother, Indigenous teen life and his own addictions. When he wakes up naked, dangerously dehydrated and confused in the basement of his mom's old house in Kitimat, some of the people he loves--the ones who don't see the magic he attracts--just think he fell off the wagon after a tough year of sobriety. The truth for Jared is so much worse.

He finally knows for sure that he is the only one of his bio dad Wee'git's 535 children who is a Trickster too, a shapeshifter with a free pass to other dimensions. Sarah, his ex, is happy he's a magical being, but everyone else he loves is either pissed with him, or in mortal danger from the dark forces he's accidentally unleashed, or both. The scariest of those dark forces is his Aunt Georgina, a maniacal ogress hungry for his power, who has sent her posse of flesh-eating coy-wolves to track him down.

Even though his mother resents like hell that Jared has taken after his dad, she is also determined that no one is going to hurt her son. For Maggie it's simple--Kill or be killed, bucko. Soon Jared is at the centre of an all-out war--a horrifying place to be for the universe's sweetest Trickster, whose first instinct is not mischief and mind games but to make the world a kinder, safer, place.

Educator & Series Information
This is the third book in Eden Robinson's Trickster Trilogy. 

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.18" x 7.99" | Paperback

A young Indigenous girl searching for a sense of home finds strength and courage in her gifts, her deepening connection to the land, and her own cultural awakening in this moving coming-of-age story.

The last thing that twelve-year old Misko wants to do is to move away from the city to spend time on the rez with her grandmother. And yet she feels strangely compelled to go, drawn by a pull that she feels in her dreams. Maybe she can finally find out what happened to her mother, who mysteriously disappeared when Misko was four years old.

Misko’s relationship to the rez shifts when she encounters a spirited horse named Mishtadim. But Mishtadim is being violently broken by the rancher next door and his son Thomas. Misko and Thomas clash at first, only to find themselves drawn together by the wild horse. As Misko slowly discovers her unique bond with Mishtadim, she feels a sense of belonging and comes to understand the beauty of the world all around her.

She Holds Up the Stars is a powerful story of reconciliation and the interwoven threads that tie us to family, to the land, and to our own sense of self.

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 10 to 14.

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.50" x 7.50" | Paperback

Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in this queer, Māori-inspired debut fantasy about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it.

The port city of Hainak is alive: its buildings, its fashion, even its weapons. But, after a devastating war and a sweeping biotech revolution, all its inhabitants want is peace, no one more so than Yat Jyn-Hok a reformed-thief-turned-cop who patrols the streets at night.

Yat has recently been demoted on the force due to “lifestyle choices” after being caught at a gay club. She’s barely holding it together, haunted by memories of a lover who vanished and voices that float in and out of her head like radio signals. When she stumbles across a dead body on her patrol, two fellow officers gruesomely murder her and dump her into the harbor. Unfortunately for them, she wakes up.

Resurrected by an ancient power, she finds herself with the new ability to manipulate life force. Quickly falling in with the pirate crew who has found her, she must race against time to stop a plague from being unleashed by the evil that has taken root in Hainak.

Reviews
"A wonderful queer noir fever dream."—Tamsyn Muir, internationally bestselling author of Gideon the Ninth

"Fiercely queer. A strange and wondrous re-imagining of noir that takes its cues from biopunk and SE Asian mythos to create something wholly different. There's real imagination at work here—I loved it."—Rebecca Roanhorse, New York Times bestselling author of Trail of Lightning and Black Sun

"The Dawnhounds packs hard-hitting, mind-bending weirdness into a story that’s still touching and human. If you’re looking for gritty queer spec fic that isn’t unrelentingly grim, you’ve found it.”—Casey Lucas, award-winning author of Into the Mire

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of The Endsong series.

Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

In this second book in the Narnia-inspired Indigenous middle-grade fantasy series, Eli and Morgan journey once more to Misewa, travelling back in time.

Back at home after their first adventure in the Barren Grounds, Eli and Morgan each struggle with personal issues: Eli is being bullied at school, and tries to hide it from Morgan, while Morgan has to make an important decision about her birth mother. They turn to the place where they know they can learn the most, and make the journey to Misewa to visit their animal friends. This time they travel back in time and meet a young fisher that might just be their lost friend. But they discover that the village is once again in peril, and they must dig deep within themselves to find the strength to protect their beloved friends. Can they carry this strength back home to face their own challenges?

Awards

• 2022 Silver Birch Award for Fiction

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 10+. 

This is the second book in the Misewa Saga.

This book is available in French: Le grand ours.

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.62" x 8.25" | Paperback

In 1929, a corrupt land agent used fire and frightening tactics to grab the farm of a Lakota family in Lower Brule, South Dakota.

In 1929 Alfred is eleven years old and has many responsibilities not expected of a young boy. He and his Lakota family are being forced to leave behind their tribal values and traditions and assimilate into mainstream American culture and society. His Lalá (grandfather), has instilled in his grandson many Lakota traditions which Alfred respects, but at times struggles to understand the message they convey. From falling into a den of rattlesnakes, fending off a pack of wolves, to skirmishes with a ruthless land agent and his cronies, this is a page-turner of historical fiction.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for grades 9 to 12. 

This book has a Fry Reading Level of 6.

This is Book 1 in the The Legend of Big Heart Series. The Legend of Big Heart Series takes place during the early twentieth century amid the forced assimilation of Native tribes into mainstream America. The series features the exciting adventures of young Alfred Swallow as he matures into a man and helps his family survive and prosper on the Lower Brule Lakota Reservation in South Dakota.

This is a work of historical fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue, names, and characters except for some well-known historical figures are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events. In all other respects, any likeness to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This book is part of the PathFinders series of Hi-Lo (high interest, low readability) novels, which offers the following features:

• Indigenous teen protagonists
• Age-appropriate plots
• Contemporary and historical fiction
• Indigenous authors

The PathFinders series is from an American publisher. Therefore, Indigenous terminology in the PathFinders books is not the same as Canadian Indigenous terminology. This prompts a useful teaching moment for educators in discussing appropriate terminology use in Canada.

Additional Information
118 pages | 4.50" x 6.90" | Paperback

A middle-grade novel by James Bird about a boy sent to his Ojibwe family to straighten out his life.

Benjamin Waterfalls comes from a broken home, and the quickest fix he’s found for his life is to fill that emptiness with stuff he steals and then sells. But he’s been caught one too many times, and when he appears before a tough judge, his mother proposes sending him to “boot camp” at the Ojibwe reservation where they used to live.

Soon he is on his way to Grand Portage, Minnesota, to live with his father – the man Benny hasn’t seen in years. Not only is “boot camp” not what he expects, but his rehabilitation seems to be in the hands of the tribal leader’s daughter, who wears a mask. Why? Finding the answer to this and so many other questions prove tougher than any military-style boot camp. Will answers be enough for Benny to turn his life around and embrace his second chance?

Reviews
"Bird's strengths include his multidimensional characters (each of whom has flaws that they struggle to overcome) as well as the vivid descriptions of Grand Portage, Minnesota, home of the Gitchi Onigaming Ojibwe. Of equal importance is the more understated message that Indigenous ways of knowing and approaches to problems can be extremely effective, despite the dominant culture's insistence on discounting them. ... Benny's progress is heartening and sure to encourage readers."— Booklist

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 10 to 14.

Additional Information
288 pages | 5.37" x 8.25" | Hardcover 

In this unusual and forceful novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.

The Sentence asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Soul's Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Soul’s Day 2019 and ends on All Soul’s Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

Additional Information
400 pages | 5.31" x 8.00" | Paperback