Each November, the United States observes Native American Heritage Month—a time to honor the rich histories, diverse cultures, and enduring traditions of American Indian and Alaska Native peoples. First formally recognized in 1990, this month offers an opportunity to celebrate the immeasurable contributions of Native peoples to our nation’s story, from art and literature to science, governance, and environmental stewardship.
It’s also a time for reflection and education—to learn more about the many distinct tribes and communities across the country, to acknowledge the historical and present-day challenges Native peoples have faced, and to recognize the resilience, creativity, and leadership that continue to shape Native life today.
To help you explore these stories and voices, the Livingston Public Library offers a wide range of books—fiction and nonfiction, history and poetry, memoir and more—by and about Indigenous peoples in the United States. Here are a few recommendations to get you started.
Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie
A powerful mystery about a Native American archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who must reckon with her past when she is called back to Oklahoma to investigate both the disappearance of her sister and a new case of a missing Native girl that turns up evidence with her name on it.
By the Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle
A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the ’90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later.
A Calm & Normal Heart : Stories by Chelsea T. Hicks
From Oklahoma to California, the many heroes of this collection of short stories are bound by a common desire for connection and safety–inside a nation in which they have always lived but do not entirely belong. A member of the Osage tribe, author Hicks’ stories are compelled by an overlooked diaspora happening inside the borders of the United States itself: that of young Native people.
Crow Mary by Kathleen Grissom
Married to a white fur trader in 1872, a Crow Native woman has her journey to Saskatchewan interrupted when she steals two guns and saves five Nakota women who were kidnapped by drunken whiskey traders, setting off a culture war.
Held by the Land : A Guide to Indigenous Plants for Wellness by Leigh Joseph
Joseph, an ethnobotanist and a member of the Squamish Nation, provides a beautifully illustrated essential introduction to Indigenous plant knowledge. The Indigenous Peoples of North America have long traditions of using native plants as medicine as well as for food. In the plant profiles section, common plants are introduced with illustrations and information on their characteristics, range, how to grow and/or harvest them, and how to use them topically and as food. Special features offer recipes for food and beauty products along with stories and traditions around the plants.
Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina
A man leaps in front of a car. An old woman drowns herself. A corpse speaks from its coffin. On this reservation, nothing is as it seems. After her boyfriend’s mysterious suicide, Noemi Broussard’s hopes for a fresh start collapse. The details don’t add up, and when her long-absent Uncle Louie returns with dark secrets from the past, they join forces to uncover the truth behind the death—and the sinister force haunting their tribal land. But as Noemi digs deeper, she wonders if some secrets are better left buried.
Indigenous Continent : The Epic Contest for North America
Historian Pekka Hämäläinen offers a bold retelling of American history that centers Native nations rather than European colonizers. Rejecting the traditional timeline of Jamestown, Plymouth, and the Revolution, he reveals a continent long dominated by powerful Indigenous societies—from the Iroquois and Comanches to the Pueblos and Cherokees—who wielded military strength, diplomacy, and political sophistication to maintain sovereignty. Even as European empires claimed vast territories, Native peoples truly controlled most of North America well into the 19th century, with victories like Little Big Horn marking the height of Indigenous power. Hämäläinen argues that “colonial America” is a misnomer; it was, in truth, an “Indigenous America” that only gradually became colonial—an influence still visible in the hundreds of Native nations thriving today.
Indigenous Firsts : A History of Native American Achievements and Events by Yvonne Wakim Dennis
Recognizes and honors 2,000 barrier-breaking trailblazers and history-making events in multiple fields-arts, entertainment, business, sovereignty, education, government, religion, science, sports, music, and more.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz retells U.S. history through the eyes of Indigenous peoples, exposing how Native nations have long resisted the expansion of the American empire. She dismantles the nation’s founding myths, revealing a legacy of colonial policies aimed at seizing Native lands and erasing their cultures—policies celebrated in literature, government, and the military.
The Missing Morningstar : And Other Stories by Stacie Shannon Denetsosie
Denetsosie confronts long-reaching effects of settler-colonialism on Native lives in a series of gritty, wildly imaginative stories. A young Navajo man catches a ride home alongside a casket he’s sure contains his dead grandfather. A gas station clerk witnesses the kidnapping of the newly crowned Miss Northwestern Arizona. A young couple’s search for a sperm donor raises questions of blood quantum. This debut collection grapples with a complex and painful history alongside an inheritance of beauty, ceremony, and storytelling.
Native America : The Story of the First Peoples by Kenneth L. Feder
Feder, a leading expert on Native American history and archaeology, draws on archaeological, historical, and cultural evidence to tell the ongoing story, more than 20,000 years in the making, of an incredibly resilient and diverse mixture of peoples, revealing how they have ingeniously adapted to the many changing environments of the continent, from the Arctic to the desert Southwest.
Native American Archaeology in the Parks : A Guide to Heritage Sites in our National Parks and Monuments by Kenneth L. Feder
This book celebrates 30 national parks, historical parks, and monuments that illuminate the histories and cultures of Native Americans. It guides readers to ancient burial mounds in Ohio, earth sculptures in Iowa, a sacred red-stone quarry in Minnesota, the village of Sacagawea in North Dakota, stunning cliff dwellings in Arizona and Colorado, and haunting spirit paintings in Utah—each site revealing the deep heritage and artistry of America’s first peoples.
Native American Spiritualism : An Exploration of Indigenous Beliefs and Cultures by L. M. Arroyo
The spiritual practices of Native Americans are as diverse and bountiful as the Nations themselves, renowned for their inextricable ties to nature and geographical location. Today, many Indigenous customs are still conflated and misunderstood, even though their influence is seen and felt in every corner of the country.
Native Nations : A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
In this magisterial history of the continent, Kathleen DuVal traces the power of Native nations from the rise of ancient cities more than 1000 years ago to the present. She reframes North American history, noting significantly that Indigenous civilizations did not come to a halt when a few wandering explorers or hungry settlers arrived, even when the strangers came well-armed.
The Plot Against Native America : The Fateful Story of Native American Boarding Schools and the Theft of Tribal Lands by Bill Vaughn
Between 1859 and the 1960’s missionaries and the U.S. government operated more than five hundred assimilation centers. Their ostensible goal was to solve the “Indian problem” by transforming Indigenous children into English-speaking Christians who could hold down a job or run a farm or manage a household. But as the government finally admitted, the real objective was to steal tribal land. Most of these boys and girls were taken forcibly from their families and sent far away in order to alienate them from their tribes and erase their languages, spirituality, and cultures. Despite the plot against Native America, Indigenous cultures have endured. With inspiring efforts, tribal councils are now building their own bison herds, teaching their children indigenous languages, as well as striving to build self-sufficient economies in this new era that is upon us.
The Rediscovery of America : Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk
The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, with a new generation of scholars insisting that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations.
The Removed : A Novel by Brandon Hobson
Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago.
Seed to plate, Soil to Sky : Modern Plant-Based Recipes Using Native American Ingredients by Lois Ellen Frank
Introduces the splendor and importance of Native culinary history and pairs it with delicious Native American-inspired dishes. Grounded in a primer on Native American cuisine and with a necessary discussion of food sovereignty and sustainability, this book shares more than 100 nutritious, plant based recipes organized by each of the foundational ingredients.
1666 : A Novel by Lora Chilton
Told in first person point of view through the imagined lives of two women, Chilton tells the harrowing stories of Ah’SaWei WaTaPaAnTam (Golden Fawn) and NePa’WeXo (Shining Moon), members of the surviving Patawomeck tribe, who after the slaughter of their men were sold and transported to Barbados via slave ship. Separated and bought by different sugar plantations, they endured, each plotting their escapes before finally making their way back to Virginia to be reunited with the few members of the tribe that remained. It is because of these women that the tribe is in existence to this day.
To Save the Man by John Sayles
At the Carlisle Indian School in 1890, young Native students are forced to abandon their culture under the brutal hand of Captain Pratt, while whispers of the ghost dance spread across the Plains, offering a glimmer of hope and rebellion against the inevitable bloodshed looming on the horizon.
The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West by Paul Andrew Hutton
From the forests of Pennsylvania and Kentucky to the snow-crested California Sierras, and from the harsh deserts of the Southwest to the buffalo range of the Great Plains, Hutton masterfully chronicles a story that defined America and its people. From Braddock’s 1755 defeat to the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, he unfolds a grand narrative steeped in romantic impulses and tragic consequences. Hutton uses seven main protagonists–Daniel Boone, Red Eagle, Davy Crockett, Mangas Coloradas, Kit Carson, Sitting Bull, and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody–as the biographical threads by which to weave a tapestry across seven generations, revealing a story of heroic conquest and dark tragedy, of sacrifice and greed, and of man-made wonders and environmental ruin.
The Whistler by Nick Medina
Henry Hotard, once a rising ghost-hunting star, is forced to return to his reservation after an accident leaves him paralyzed. As he struggles to adjust to life in a wheelchair, strange hauntings begin to plague him. His girlfriend blames trauma, but Henry suspects something darker—something tied to an old Native superstition: never whistle at night. To banish the spirit tormenting him, Henry must confront his past and the fateful night that changed everything.
—Archana,Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian