Through Black Spruce, published in 2008, is Canadian author Joseph Boyden’s second novel. His first, Three Day Road (2005), is a work of historical fiction based on the life of Xavier Bird. Through Black Spruce focuses on Xavier’s son, Will Bird, and his granddaughter, Annie Bird. Boyden uses storytelling as a narrative framework to share the Bird family’s story. Annie and Will narrate alternating chapters, telling stories about their past year as the reader also... Read Through Black Spruce Summary

The novel opens with Sound of Running Feet, a young Nez Perce girl and the daughter of Chief Joseph. She runs into a white settler and his wife in a familiar meadow near her village. She challenges the settler and reports the incident to her father, who tells her that white settlers are coming in droves. Chief Joseph is a thoughtful and respectable chief but not a war chief—he is worried about his people.Soon, the... Read Thunder Rolling in the Mountains Summary

Tracks, by Louise Erdrich, appeared as the third in a tetralogy of works beginning with Love Medicine, continuing with The Beet Queen, and ending with The Bingo Palace. All of these novels center on the history of the Chippewa or Ojibwe tribe located in and around the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. In Tracks, Erdrich reaches back into the early twentieth century to retell the great losses the Chippewa tribe experienced. When disease and... Read Tracks Summary

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In the 1993 novella Two Old Women by Velma Wallis, the harsh Alaskan climate and rigidity of tribal life set the stage for a life-changing journey marked by perseverance and passion. Faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, two elderly women find themselves in the fight of their lives, a fight they rise to with beauty and determination. The story of these two women, Sa’ and Ch’idzigyaak, has come to reverberate through the ages. Part of an... Read Two Old Women Summary

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Ella Cara Deloria’s 1988 novel, Waterlily, is an examination of the Dakota Native American way of life. The novel follows a Dakota camp circle called White Ghost—a group composed of several families that live and travel together. While the novel provides perspectives from many different characters, the author places the greatest focus on Blue Bird and her daughter Waterlily. At the novel’s outset, Blue Bird gives birth to Waterlily by a river while her camp... Read Waterlily Summary

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“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” is a short story by Sherman Alexie, an American writer and member of both the Spokane and Coeur-d’Alene nations. First published in The New Yorker in 2003, the story also featured in Alexie’s 2004 collection Ten Little Indians. Although largely realistic in its depiction of issues like homelessness and the legacy of Native American genocide, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” contains references to and elements of fairy tale... Read What You Pawn I Will Redeem Summary

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Wind From an Enemy Sky is a 1978 historical fiction novel by D’Arcy McNickle. It tells the story of the fictional Little Elk tribe in the northwestern United States and their attempts to navigate the advancement of white colonization on their lands. McNickle based the story on his life as a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. The novel was McNickle’s last and was published posthumously. While it never... Read Wind from an Enemy Sky Summary

James Welch’s novel, Winter in the Blood, is a seminal text in the field of Indigenous American literature. The novel was published in 1974 during the Native American Renaissance, a period that began in the late 1960s, when works by Indigenous Americans in the United States gained wider publication. Welch is a preeminent figure of the movement and received praise for representing Indigenous Americans in realistic ways that acknowledge cultural divisions.In the novel, Welch uses... Read Winter In The Blood Summary

Wisdom Sits in Places (University of New Mexico Press, 1996) is a non-fiction book of essays by American ethnographer and anthropologist Keith Basso. In the book, Basso explores the role of place-names, or toponyms, in the language and culture of the Western Apache. In doing so, he sets forth an argument that the way of life of the Western Apache can only be understood by examining their sense of place, and he makes the case... Read Wisdom Sits in Places Summary

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