Collection: Shop Indigenous

"Swim Home to the Vanished is a lush and fantastic journey through strange lands and minds from an incandescent new voice full of my kind of melancholic brilliance and unromantic magic."--Tommy Orange, author of There, There

After the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young man seeks refuge and oblivion in a secluded fishing village dominated by a family of brujas in this haunting debut novel, inspired, in part, by the ramifications of Diné history and thought--a mesmerizing, original tale in the tradition of works by Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel García Márquez.

When the river swallowed Kai, Damien's little brother didn't die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien, a small-town line cook, walks away from everything he has ever known. Driving as far south as his old truck and his legs allow, he lands in a fishing village beyond the reach of his past where he hopes he can finally forget.

But the village has grief of its own. The same day that Damien arrives, a young woman from the community's most powerful family is being laid to rest. A stranger in town, Damien is the object of gossip and suspicion, ignored by all except the dead girl's mother, Ana Maria, who offers Damien a room and a job.

Grateful for her kindness, Damien soon begins to fall under Ana Maria's charismatic spell. But how long can he resist the rumors swirling through town suggesting she might have had something to do with her daughter's death? Or deny his strange kinship with one of Ana Maria's surviving daughters, Marta, who knows too well the grief that follows the loss of a sibling--and who is driven by a fierce need for revenge? Swiftly, Damien finds himself caught in a power struggle between the brujas, a whirlwind battle that threatens to sweep the whole village out to sea.

Resonant with the Diné creation story and the unshakeable weight of the Long Walk--the forced removal of the Navajo from their land--Swim Home to the Vanished explores the human capacity for grief and redemption, and the lasting effects it has on the soul.

The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit

More than thirty-five years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Publishers Weekly Best of the Year
BookPage Best of the Year
Junior Library Guild Gold Standard
Evanston Library Best of the Year
Horn Book 2023 Summer Reading List

"Vivid and vibrant." --NPR Weekend Edition

At the start of things, the elders say,
the universe was hushed and still.
The moon alone shone bright and round in the star-speckled dark of the sky.

David Álvarez is one of the most extraordinary artists working today. His black-and-white illustrations have gained fame in his home country of Mexico and around the world.

Here, in Ancient Night (Noche Antigua), David displays his immense talent with full-color illustrations for the first time.

Ancient Night is a twist on two Nahuatl traditions: the rabbit which the Feathered Serpent placed on the moon, and Yaushu, the Lord Opossum who ruled the earth before humans came, and who stole fire from the gods to create the sun.

Award-winning author David Bowles has written a poetic text - and carefully researched backmatter - to accompany David's lush illustrations and story. Published simultaneously in English and Spanish editions, Ancient Night offers young readers everywhere the chance to savor this ancient tale in its most beautiful format possible.

P R A I S E

★ "Bolstered by the ethereal, whimsical text, the plush, incandescent acrylic and oil paint artwork gathers the subtleties and splendors of nighttime and the plant life that surrounds Rabbit and Opossum. Together words and images tug readers along at a measured pace. An excellent authors' note underscores how common strands and crucial differences from wide-ranging Mesoamerican legends and myths furnish the inspiration at the roots of this tale. Like a mighty dream recalled from time gone by."
--Kirkus (starred)

★ "Luminous acrylic and oil illustrations bring the night to life... Enchanting text presents the tale in short, clear sentences that convey a sense of timeless mystery and beauty... An excellent choice for picture book collections that uniquely explores traditional Mesoamerican tales and is sure to inspire the wish for further discovery and appreciation."
--School Library Journal (starred)

★ "Bowles' spare, evocative text flows like poetry... Álvarez's compositions are sophisticated and uncluttered... beautifully crafted, gently stylized figures so remarkably textured that you can almost count the number of hairs on Rabbit's body. Ancient Night is wondrous, sparkling and easily one of the best picture books of 2023."
--BookPage (starred)

★ "Bowles's unhurried lines offer a playfully elegant feel to the telling, while Álvarez's saturated digitized paintings use a limited palette to imagine long-eared, gray Rabbit and pointy-nosed, rust-hued Opossum against luminous leafy landscapes. Together, the collaborators create a dreamlike story variation that truly shines."
--Publishers Weekly (starred)

★ "Unmissable... The breathtaking illustrations exude light themselves..."
--Foreword Reviews (starred)

★ "Stunning illustrations by acclaimed Mexican artist Álvarez feature a velvety black backdrop of a sky, stars providing only pinpricks of light...spellbinding, poetic text is lyrical but crisp."
--Horn Book (starred)

"A calming selection for evening lap reads and storytimes."
--BCCB

"A perfect bedtime read aloud. This Mesoamerican-inspired fable borrows from old tales for a larger-than-life yet soothingly illustrated picture book."
--Shelf-Awareness

"Exquisite."
--Melissa Taylor, Imagination Soup

"Álvarez's illustrations alone are enough to make this stunning picture book a winner--the dreamy feel of the milky moonlight against the deep-dark night and the crisp simplicity of the animals and their world is masterful. When paired with interwoven traditional Mesoamerican tales of the magic and power of our lunar companion, the story sings, enchanting readers with its mystery and beauty. Don't miss this one!"
--Southern Bookseller Review

Winner of the National Book Award - Washington Post Best Book of the Year - A New York Times Notable Book

From one of the most revered novelists of our time, an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece--at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.

From oral history to written word, learn about the history of Oregon through the stories of the Indigenous peoples of the Willamette Valley.

The Willamette Valley is rich with history--its riverbanks, forests, and mountains home to the tribes of Kalapuya, Chinook, Molalla, and more for thousands of years. This history has been largely unrecorded, incomplete, poorly researched, or partially told. In these stories, enriched by photographs and maps, Oregon Indigenous historian David G. Lewis combines years of researching historical documents and collecting oral stories, highlighting Native perspectives about the history of the Willamette Valley as they experienced it.

The timeline spans the first years of contact between settlers and tribes, the takeover of tribal lands and creation of reservations by the US Federal Government, and the assimilation efforts of boarding schools. Lewis shows the resiliency of Native peoples in the face of colonization.

Undoing the erasure of these stories reveals the fuller picture of the colonization and changes experienced by the Native peoples of the Willamette Valley absent from other contemporary histories of Oregon.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492--from "a remarkably engaging writer" (The New York Times Book Review).

Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man's first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

Award-winning author Michelle Porter makes her fiction debut with an enchanting and original story of the unrivaled desire for healing and the power of familial bonds across five generations of Métis women and the land and bison that surround them.

Written like a crooked Métis jig, A Grandmother Begins the Story follows five generations of women and bison as they reach for the stories that could remake their worlds and rebuild their futures.

Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means.
Allie, Carter's mother, is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward.

This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters--including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land--heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

A Caldecott Honor Book!

An Indie Bestseller!

Caldecott Medalist Michaela Goade's first self-authored picture book is a gorgeous celebration of the land she knows well and the powerful wisdom of elders.

On an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea, a girl and her grandmother gather gifts from the earth. Salmon from the stream, herring eggs from the ocean, and in the forest, a world of berries.

Salmonberry, Cloudberry, Blueberry, Nagoonberry.

Huckleberry, Snowberry, Strawberry, Crowberry.

Through the seasons, they sing to the land as the land sings to them. Brimming with joy and gratitude, in every step of their journey, they forge a deeper kinship with both the earth and the generations that came before, joining in the song that connects us all. Michaela Goade's luminous rendering of water and forest, berries and jams glows with her love of the land and offers an invitation to readers to deepen their own relationship with the earth.

"Compelling . . . The Seed Keeper invokes the strength that women, land, and plants have shared with one another through the generations." -ROBIN WALL KIMMERER

There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus "discovers" a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing "New World" as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back, they cannot stop the onslaught. White imperialists are destined to rule the continent, and history is an irreversible march toward Indigenous destruction.

Yet as with other long-accepted origin stories, this one, too, turns out to be based in myth and distortion. In Indigenous Continent, acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Revolution, and other well-trodden episodes on the conventional timeline, he depicts a sovereign world of Native nations whose members, far from helpless victims of colonial violence, dominated the continent for centuries after the first European arrivals. From the Iroquois in the Northeast to the Comanches on the Plains, and from the Pueblos in the Southwest to the Cherokees in the Southeast, Native nations frequently decimated white newcomers in battle. Even as the white population exploded and colonists' land greed grew more extravagant, Indigenous peoples flourished due to sophisticated diplomacy and leadership structures.

By 1776, various colonial powers claimed nearly all of the continent, but Indigenous peoples still controlled it--as Hämäläinen points out, the maps in modern textbooks that paint much of North America in neat, color-coded blocks confuse outlandish imperial boasts for actual holdings. In fact, Native power peaked in the late nineteenth century, with the Lakota victory in 1876 at Little Big Horn, which was not an American blunder, but an all-too-expected outcome.

Hämäläinen ultimately contends that the very notion of "colonial America" is misleading, and that we should speak instead of an "Indigenous America" that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. The evidence of Indigenous defiance is apparent today in the hundreds of Native nations that still dot the United States and Canada. Necessary reading for anyone who cares about America's past, present, and future, Indigenous Continent restores Native peoples to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history.

Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction - National Bestseller - A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 - A New York Times Notable Book of 2023 - A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction of 2023 - An Esquire Best Book of 2023 - An NPR "Book We Love" for 2023 - A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2023 - A Tribal College Journal Best Native Studies Book of 2023 - A Michigan Notable Book of 2024

A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America

"Eloquent and comprehensive. . . . In the book's sweeping synthesis, standard flashpoints of U.S. history take on new meaning."--Kathleen DuVal, Wall Street Journal

"In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated as largely incidental--either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation-building. Blackhawk . . . [shows] that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along."--Washington Post Book World, "Books to Read in 2023"

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, as a new generation of scholars insists that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.

Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non-Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In this transformative synthesis he shows that

- European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success;

- Native nations helped shape England's crisis of empire;

- the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior;

- California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War;

- the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West;

- twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy.

Blackhawk's retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.

Packed with fun activities for self-reflection and development, this creative workbook is the ultimate toolkit for all young activists looking to make a difference and create change. Each chapter includes voices from inspiring young game changers to encourage readers to channel their passion for social justice into positive action.

Focusing on identity, discrimination and oppression, it offers the space to explore new ideas, self-reflect and expand awareness of the systems underpinning injustice. Chapters engage with a range of social justice and identity issues, including race, gender, sexual orientation and disability, providing the tools needed to facilitate and encourage personal growth.

Through creative art activities, journal prompts, interviews and more, this workbook will inspire, engage and empower you to realize your own social justice project and put it into action.

From pirates, politicians, and pornographers to starlets, serial killers, and saints, Gay a Day showcases a multicultural mosaic of real-life stories. Each day features the biography of a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex person of note: their accomplishments, their loves, their tragedies, and their times. With every page you turn, you'll find beautiful heroics, chilling horrors, and secret histories that will scandalize you, and by the end of the year you'll be prouder than ever. A great read for people interested in the rich yet often hidden past of queer folk.

Rad Families: A Celebration honors the messy, the painful, the playful, the beautiful, the myriad ways we create families. This is not an anthology of experts, or how-to articles on perfect parenting; it often doesn't even try to provide answers. Instead, the writers strive to be honest and vulnerable in sharing their stories and experiences, their failures and their regrets.

Gathering parents and writers from diverse communities, it explores the process of getting pregnant from trans birth to adoption, grapples with issues of racism and police brutality, probes raising feminists and feminist parenting. It plumbs the depths of empty nesting and letting go.

Some contributors are recognizable authors and activists but most are everyday parents working and loving and trying to build a better world one diaper change at a time. It's a book that reminds us all that we are not alone, that community can help us get through the difficulties, can, in fact, make us better people. It's a celebration, join us!

Contributors include Jonas Cannon, Ian MacKaye, Burke Stansbury, Danny Goot, Simon Knaphus, Artnoose, Welch Canavan, Daniel Muro LaMere, Jennifer Lewis, Zach Ellis, Alicia Dornadic, Jesse Palmer, Mindi J., Carla Bergman, Tasnim Nathoo, Rachel Galindo, Robert Liu-Trujillo, Dawn Caprice, Shawn Taylor, D.A. Begay, Philana Dollin, Airial Clark, Allison Wolfe, Roger Porter, cubbie rowland-storm, Annakai & Rob Geshlider, Jeremy Adam Smith, Frances Hardinge, Jonathan Shipley, Bronwyn Davies Glover, Amy Abugo Ongiri, Mike Araujo, Craig Elliott, Eleanor Wohlfeiler, Scott Hoshida, Plinio Hernandez, Madison Young, Nathan Torp, Sasha Vodnik, Jessie Susannah, Krista Lee Hanson, Carvell Wallace, Dani Burlison, Brian Whitman, scott winn, Kermit Playfoot, Chris Crass, and Zora Moniz.

Aang faces a decision from which there is no return!

When Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph return to Earthen Fire Industries--the factory owned by Toph's father--Aang is surprised when their arrival is met with a cold shoulder. As soon as the team is asked for help at a business council meeting, the reason for the slight becomes clear: a massive bender-versus-non-bender conflict has gripped the town and is threatening to turn violent. In order to heal the divide and save the town, Aang and the team will all face tough decisions about power and identity that could tear them apart.

Written by Faith Erin Hicks (The Adventures of Superhero Girl, The Nameless City) and drawn by Peter Wartman (Stonebreaker), in collaboration with Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, this is the ultimate continuation of Avatar!

Collects Avatar: The Last Airbender - Imbalance parts 1-3 (ATLA volumes 16-18).