November is Native American Heritage Month, so the CC Book Nook is back with recommendations of what to read this month!
The first book is The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. The book follows 18-year-old Daunis Fontaine, a Native American girl about to start college. However, she never gets a chance to experience college or the fresh start that she’d been dreaming of because family tragedy strikes, and she’s forced to stay home. At least she has Jamie, a boy from her brother’s hockey team that she’s slowly catching feelings for… until he starts acting suspicious. Everything’s revealed the night Daunis witnesses a murder, and she’s thrust into an undercover investigation of a new lethal drug, thanks to her knowledge of Ojibwe medicine and chemistry. The investigation soon reveals truths that Daunis didn’t want to admit, and she must find a way to protect her community at any cost, even the cost of the only world she knows.
The second book is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Named “Best Essay Collection of the Decade” by Literary Hub, the book explores Native American culture as well as the plants we see in nature every day. Monique Gray Smith also offers an abridged version of the book for young adults if the original story is too long. Kimmerer urges readers to understand and celebrate the natural world before being truly conscious of planet Earth. With the story, we gain knowledge of a culture that may go unnoticed in American society, and it’s important to understand not only the natural world but also the people living on the Earth.
