The best books about Native Americans are impactful for teens and adults to read for Thanksgiving, Native American Heritage Month, and beyond. These bestselling, award-winning books span various genres in nonfiction and fiction. You’ll learn from diverse voices often silenced in American literature and history and walk a mile in their shoes. Let’s get literary!
List of the Best Books About Native Americans
TOP 3 PICKS
Firekeeper’s Daughter is a popular Reese’s Young Adult book club pick about a young tribal woman who goes undercover as she encounters issues of family, drugs, and the law.
Killers of the Flower Moon is the shocking true crime story about the death of the Osage tribe, which birthed the FBI and was the subject of a recent film.
There There is a recently popular and award-winning novel that tells the interconnected stories of many different modern Native Americans whose lives ultimately converge at a pow-wow.
Non-Fiction
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Fiction
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Young Adult)
- Dances With Wolves by Michael Blake
- Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulie (Young Adult)
- The Night Watchman by Louise Erdich
- The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
- The Removed by Brandon Hobson
- The Round House by Louise Erdich
- The Sentence by Louise Erdich
- There There by Tommy Orange
- This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
- When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky by Margaret Verble
- Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
- Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
More Details On These Native American Books for Teens and Adults
Reading Native American literature is important because it offers authentic voices on Indigenous cultures, histories, and experiences. It fosters understanding, challenges stereotypes, and enriches our appreciation of diverse perspectives.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is a young cartoonist on an Indian Reservation when he begins attending an all-white farm town high school off the Reservation. The only other Indian? The mascot.
It’s a coming-of-age story of Native American identity and finding yourself. It’s filled with Junior’s artwork as well!
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
In Braiding Sweetgrass, an Indigenous scientist explores how various forms of life teach us essential lessons and offer gifts.
Through reflections on the creation of Turtle Island and current ecological challenges, she argues that truly understanding and appreciating our connection to nature requires recognizing and honoring our reciprocal relationship with all living things.
Dances With Wolves by Michael Blake
In Dances With Wolves, Lieutenant John Dunbar is sent to an isolated army post, where he finds himself alone except for a wolf and nearby Comanche tribes. As he becomes entangled with the Comanche people, he learns their ways and grows close to them.
But, when his past catches up with him, Dunbar faces a pivotal choice about where his true loyalties lie.
The movie adaptation was one of the most popular and acclaimed of its time, and it was required educational viewing for me.
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
In the popular Firekeeper’s Daughter, eighteen-year-old Daunis is an outsider in her hometown and the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She plans on making a fresh start at college but puts this on hold when a family tragedy strikes.
Meanwhile, she starts to fall for the new member of her brother’s hockey team. When she witnesses the tragic murder of a friend, she realizes he may not be who she thought he was and is thrown into an FBI investigation of a very lethal new drug.
Daunis agrees to go undercover to track down the source, but doing so continually puts her in harm’s way and exposes shocking family secrets.
In this universally beloved suspense novel, she must learn what being a strong Ojibwe woman means. She’s a memorable character, and her story works well for young adults and adults.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Killers of the Flower Moon is based on the true story of the real-life murders of Osage Nation members in the 1920s and the subsequent investigation by the newly formed FBI.
The members of this Oklahoman tribe, on whose land oil was discovered, were the richest people in the world. Then, one by one, the members died under mysterious circumstances. Further, many of those who investigated the deaths were murdered.
The newly created FBI took on the case, and former Texas Ranger Tom White tried to solve the mystery. With an undercover team, they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies against Native Americans in history.
It’s a widely acclaimed true crime story with a propulsive narrative that will shock you.
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
The Night Watchman is the story of a man who worked as a night watchman in 1953 at the jewel-bearing plant near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member trying to understand the new “emancipation” bill, a threat to their land and identity.
Meanwhile, Patrice is a smart and independent woman who makes jewel bearings at the plant, barely supporting her family. Her alcoholic father returns home and terrorizes them, while Patrice saves her pennies, determined to find her older sister in Minneapolis. Along the way, Patrice’s journey introduces her to exploitation and violence.
In the same community as Thomas and Patrice, a cast of memorable characters also highlights the emotions and desires of Native Americans.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
The Only Good Indians blends psychological horror with social commentary on identity and the American Indian experience. The story follows four American Indian men haunted by a traumatic event from their youth. As they face a vengeful entity, they struggle against the violent return of their cultural past.
It’s a good choice for those who like horror but want a more substantial plot with a real-life purpose.
The Removed by Brandon Hobson
In The Removed, it’s been fifteen years since teenager Ray-Ray was killed in a police shooting. Now, his mother is struggling to manage her husband’s Alzheimer’s. Meanwhile, their adult daughter lives in solitude, and their other son turns to drugs.
The annual family bonfire is approaching on the Cherokee National Holiday and the anniversary of Ray-Ray’s death. It will allow them to memorialize Ray-Ray, but they feel boundaries between ordinary life and the spirit world blurring.
The Removed is a quick and immersive read that draws from Cherokee folklore to explore the long-standing effects of trauma and grief for individual family members and the meaning of home that binds them.
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
In The Round House, a woman living on a North Dakotan reservation is attacked in the Spring of 1988. Traumatized, she’s slow to reveal the details to the police, her husband, or her son. Her son, desperate to heal her, is thrust prematurely into the adult world.
His father, a tribal judge, endeavors for justice, while he sets out with his trusted friends to get answers. This leads them to the “Round House,” a sacred place of worship for the Ojibwe.
But that’s only the beginning of this mysterious coming-of-age novel with cultural themes.
The Sentence by Louise Erdich
In The Sentence, Tookie is a Native American ex-convict who lands a job at a Minneapolis bookstore. From one All Souls’ Day to the next, a deceased customer haunts the bookstore.
As COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement take place, modern Native American themes like identity and cultural appropriation are explored.
There There by Tommy Orange
… so much development had happened there, that the there of her childhood, the there there, was gone, there was no there there anymore.
There There is one of the best books about Native Americans because it uniquely tells the plight of modern, urban Native Americans in Oakland, California, through the lens of over a dozen characters dealing with issues like identity, addiction, and grief.
It’s a character-driven novel about the lost identities of a group of people who suffered violence and injustices in history. The characters’ lives interconnect and ultimately converge in a stunning and powerful finale at a pow-wow.
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
This Tender Land is the story of a rag-tag group of vagabond children in the Summer of 1932 along the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River.
Odie and his brother Albert were orphans sent to the harsh confines of the Lincoln Indian Training School, forced to flee after a terrible crime. Along with their friend, a mute Native American named Mose, and a broken little girl named Emmy, they head on a string of adventures toward the Mississippi, determined to find their place in the world.
Along the way, they encounter struggling farmers, traveling faith healers, displaced families, and all kinds of lost souls.
While it’s not entirely a Native American story, it bears heavy Native American themes of violence and identity. It’s an unforgettable, epic adventure for truth and home on American soil.
When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky by Margaret Verble
When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky is set in 1926 Nashville, and it follows Two Feathers, a young Cherokee horse-diver on loan to the Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show.
Her closest friend, Hank Crawford, a member of a high-achieving a high-achieving Black family, loves horses almost as much as she does. Neither fit into their highly segregated society.
After disaster strikes during one of Two’s shows, strange things happen at the park. Apparitions appear, and then the hippo falls mysteriously ill. Meanwhile, Two Feathers bonds with Clive, the zookeeper and traumatized World War I veteran.
The entire staff must unite to get to the bottom of the lingering spirits in this story of friendship among exotic animals.
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Winter Counts is a page-turning suspense novel about drug addiction on a Native American reservation, weaving into its thrills societal and Native American commentary.
Virgil Wounded Horse is the “enforcer” on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When heroin use rises in the reservation and affects the life of his nephew, he enlists his ex-girlfriend to track down the source of the drugs. Along the way, he realizes that being a modern Native American comes at an incredible cost.
It’s addictive and easy to read, especially in audiobook format. It makes you think long after turning the pages.
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Woman of Light is a multigenerational saga of survival. After her brother leaves Denver because of a violent white mob, Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is alone during the 1930s.
Her visions take her to her Indigenous homeland, where her family rose and fell as Indigenous people. She keeps these stories, and it’s up to her to preserve the memory of her loved ones.
Recap
TOP 3 BOOKS ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS
Get started learning about Native American history and culture with these top picks:
remember, it’s a good day to read a book. – jules
Do you have any recommendations for books, fiction or non fiction, about the lives of native americans before “the white man?” What were their lives like? What is their history and origin? I know it’s not as easy as one category “native americans.” There were hundreds and hundreds of tribes. I would like to read more.
Hi Karen, these are the only books I am personally familiar with.
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley is another fabulous one!
I’m going to read this one soon!! Thanks for sharing it.