One of the most amazing things about books is that they provide windows into cultures and lived experiences that are different from our own. When we become emotionally involved in people's stories, we become more empathetic and that empathy has the potential to change everything.

This Indigenous People's Day, I'm sharing Native American and First Nations authors and books that have provided me with windows into their worlds. For that, I am so grateful! Go read them!

Danica Nava is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. As it just so happens, November is a contemporary romance month for the You Can Sit with Us Book Club and Danica has a new title, Sunflower Season releasing November first. A hint, perhaps?

Angeline Boulley's Firekeeper's Daughter, Warrior Girl Unearthed, and Sisters in the Wind should be required reading, in my humble opinion. While they are written for a YA audience, they easily keep adult reader's attentions. I did not know that Firekeeper's Daughter was considered YA until after I had read it. I will say that Warrior Girl Unearthed did feel a little more YA, but that Sisters in the Wind veered back into more adult territory. I digress. Read them! Fun fact: when I first entered the "bookstagram" space, I swore I'd never ARC read because all I ever saw were ARC readers bemoaning their overcommitments, but then I saw that Angeline Boulley's book was available to request on NetGalley. And just like that, and ARC reader was unleashed!

Amanda Peters's The Berry Pickers was a monthly pick for an in-person book club I attended and it was heart wrenching. While I am not in any way Native American, I am an adoptee. The stories of other adoptees always find their way a little deeper into my heart than others. Perhaps it is this experience of mine that makes it easier to believe that, yes, white men would absolutely commit atrocities to gain/maintain control... I'm getting off track, or maybe I'm not. At any rate, Amanda Peters's collection of short stories found its way onto my TBR earlier this year. Waiting for the Long Night Moon "describes the Indigenous experience from an astonishingly wide spectrum in time and place—from contact with the first European settlers, to the forced removal of Indigenous children, to the present-day fight for the right to clean water."

You already know that I have Stephen Graham Jones's Mapping the Interior on my spooky season TBR. I have been recommended and intrigued by several of his other titles, but I feel like the short story is a good way to tell if I'll be able to handle the horror elements of his work.

Recent additions include Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove, a thriller that centers around Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women as well as The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson which explores women's generational relationships.

Bravo if you've read this far. The Instagram caption was simply not enough characters for all of these thoughts.
🗨️Have you read any of these?

Share your thoughts or drop a recommendation that I should add to this collection.