On August 9, the world celebrates and commemorates the cultures and contributions of the world’s Indigenous Peoples. This day is also meant to raise awareness of the rights of, and challenges facing, Indigenous Peoples.
Birrarung Wilam: A Story From Aboriginal Australia by Joy Murphy Wandin and Lisa Kennedy
Travel along Melbourne's twisting Yarra River in a glorious celebration of Indigenous culture and Australia's unique flora and fauna. Ages 6-9.
The Ainu: A Story of Japan's Original People by Shigeru Kayano and Shunichi Iijima
An introduction to the Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan's original inhabitants, including their history, customs, clothing, food, habitats, and beliefs. Ages 9-12.
Boy directed by Taika Waititi
An eleven-year-old Maori boy living on a farm in New Zealand imagines his absent father in a heroic version, and when he finally gets the chance to meet him, he finds a man vastly different from what he imagined.
Sami Blood directed by Amanda Kernell
Elle Marja, 14, is a reindeer-breeding Sámi girl. Exposed to the racism of the 1930s and race biology examinations at her boarding school, she starts dreaming of another life. To achieve this other life, she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture.
Native Enough by Nina O'Leary
This book can be best explained as a representation of an experiential and phenotypic spectrum of the Native college student, and exists as a collection of portraits paired with excerpts from interviews done with the students immediately before taking their portraits.
Canada at a Crossroads: Boundaries, Bridges, and Laissez-faire Racism in Indigenous-Settler Relations by Jeff Denis
Author Jeff Denis illustrates how contemporary Indigenous and settler residents think about and relate to one another. He highlights how, despite often having close cross-group relationships, residents maintain conflicting perspectives on land, culture, history, and treaties, and Indigenous residents frequently experience interpersonal and systemic racism.
The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes by Scott Wallace
The extraordinary true story of a journey into the deepest recesses of the Amazon to track one of the planet's last uncontacted Indigenous tribes. In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, author Scott Wallace chronicles an expedition into the Amazon's uncharted depths, discovering the rainforest's secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with one such tribe, the mysterious flecheiros, or "People of the Arrow."
Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces by Alexandra N. Harris and Mark G. Hirsch
Rare stories from more than 250 years of Native Americans' service in the military. Why We Serve commemorates the 2020 opening of the National Native American Veterans Memorial at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the first landmark in Washington, DC to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of Indigenous veterans.
Too Afraid to Cry: Memoir of a Stolen Childhood by Ali Cobby Eckermann
Ali Cobby Eckermann describes with searing detail the devastating effects of racist policies that tore apart Indigenous Australian communities and created the Stolen Generations of "adoptees," Aboriginal children forcibly taken from their birth families. Told at first through the frank eyes of a child whose life was irretrievably changed after being "adopted" into a German Lutheran family.
Taboo by Kim Scott
Taboo takes place in the present day, in the rural South-West of Western Australia, and tells the story of a group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination by these Noongar's descendants, of a white man who had stolen a Black woman.
Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities by Paul Seesequasis
A revelatory portrait of eight Indigenous communities from across North America, shown through never-before-published archival photographs, a gorgeous extension of Paul Seesequasis's popular social media project.
