Indiginerds

Indiginerds
By Alina Pete (Editor)
Iron Circus Comics, 2024. 134 pages. Young Adult Comic

The full title of this delightful graphic novel for teens is Indiginerds: Tales from Modern Indigenous Life. "Featuring an all-Indigenous creative team, this is an exhilarating anthology collecting eleven comic stories about Indigenous people balancing traditional ways of knowing with modern pop culture." Some stories touch on difficult issues like alcohol/substance abuse, domestic abuse, and harmful stereotypes. Others focus on the fruits of fostering creativity, determination, resilience, and building community. I personally loved how the illustrations fit so well with each story; "primary Indigenous characters are of varying skin tones, while secondary and background characters appear in black and white. Queer representation is present in multiple stories, and body types of various shapes/sizes are presented without related commentary. Highly recommend." ~SLJ

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Little Moons
By Jen Storm
Highwater Press, 2024. 60 pages. Young Adult Comic

A moving exploration of how grief affects people, centering on an Ojibwe family. When 15-year-old Chelsea doesn't come home after school one day, her family deals with trying to find closure. A year passes, and the family members are coping with their trauma in different ways. Reanna hopes to feel closer to her sister through traditional dancing and wearing Chelsea's regalia. Their mother does everything to distance herself from her life on the reserve, however. She moves to the city, leaving Reanna and her little brother Theo with their father. The story handles the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People with dignity and authenticity. 

The Collectors: Stories
By A.S. King (Editor)
Dutton Books, 2023. 262 pages. Young Adult Fiction

Ten acclaimed YA authors explore the artistry and emotion behind the human instinct to collect. This anthology centers around the question: "Why do we collect things?" Each story features a different type of collection, from the tangible (glass bluebirds and fandom memorabilia) to the experiential (skateboarding in empty swimming pools) and the intangible (misery, doubts, dreams, and moments that you wish could last forever). The characters discover strengths and yearned-for connections to themselves and others through what they collect. 

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults
By Robin Wall Kimmerer
Zest Books, 2022. 303 pages. Young Adult Nonfiction

An Indigenous botanist offers powerful guidance and inspiration for a sustainable - and sustaining - future in this young readers' adaptation of her 2015 adult bestseller. Sweetgrass - its planting, tending, picking, braiding, and burning - forms the organizing structure for this work in which scientific discovery and traditional wisdom form a harmonious, interconnected whole. Rather than humans' presence inherently threatening nonhuman living beings, the Indigenous worldview persuasively and vividly offered is one in which we live by guiding principles of the Honorable Harvest, enumerated here as: never take first, ask permission, listen for the answer, take only what you need, minimize harm, use everything you take, share, be grateful, and reciprocate the gift.  

LKA