Amanda Peters
Adult
In 1962 a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia comes to Maine to pick blueberries. Four-year-old Ruthie vanishes from the fields. Her brother Joe is the last to see her. Decades later, a girl named Norma in an affluent white family begins to suspect her memories are not imagination.
Prices are indicative. Final price is set by the retailer at checkout.
A missing Mi’kmaq child, a family that keeps looking, and a life built on a theft that lasts fifty years. The mystery is a way to talk about class and who is allowed to belong.
Adult. Book clubs that can sit with child abduction without needing a tidy moral. Indigenous family, not a tourist’s Maine.
What did the taking steal besides a child? Who got to call it love?
Track who is allowed to grieve out loud, and who has to keep working.
Two titles that deepen the same conversation.
Adult
Detransition, BabyTorrey Peters
Reese, a trans woman who wants a child; Ames, who detransitioned and is not done with Reese; and Katrina, Ames’s boss, who is pregnant. Three adults try to invent a family that the available scripts do not cover.
Adult
Martyr!Kaveh Akbar
Cyrus Shams, an Iranian American poet in recovery, hunts for meaning in death, family, and a painting that may be his mother. Orphaned, addicted, and allergic to easy transcendence, he turns martyrdom into a question instead of a costume.
Adult
The SafekeepYael van der Wouden
Rural Netherlands, 1961. Isabel keeps her late mother’s house in strict order until her brother leaves his new girlfriend, Eva, there for the season. Desire, suspicion, and missing silverware open a door onto what the family kept after the war.
Adult
There ThereTommy Orange
Twelve urban Native voices converge on the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie, Dene, fourteen-year-old Orvil, and others are connected in ways they do not yet know — a chorus about city life, inheritance, and a day that will not stay in the past.
Ages 3–8
All Around UsXelena González
A grandfather shows a child the circles in gardens, family, and time. Adriana M. Garcia’s art. American Indian Youth Literature Honor.
Ages 0–3
Cradle MeDebby Slier
Photographs of Native babies in cradleboards, with a few words per page. Star Bright Books.
Ages 3–8
First Laugh: Welcome, Baby!Rose Ann Tahe and Nancy Bo Flood
A Navajo family tries everything to win a baby’s first laugh — and the honor of hosting the First Laugh Ceremony. Jonathon Nelson illustrates.
Ages 3–8
Fishing with GrandmaSusan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula
Adventure begins when Grandma takes her two grandchildren out for a trip to the lake. After showing the kids how to prepare for a fishing trip, Grandma and the kids enjoy a day of jigging in the ice for fish. Grandma shows them everything they need to know to complete a successful fishing trip, from what clothes to wear, to how to drill and clear holes in the ice, to how to make a traditional Inuit jigging rod. By the end of the day, the kids have a yummy meal of Arctic char, and they have also learned everything they need to know to go out on the lake on their own.
