Celebrating Alaska Native Heritage Month and Native American Heritage Month by getting to know books authored/illustrated by Alaska Native creators is great, but know what’s even greater? Finding and reading them all year! It’s more than a celebration of a month – real Indigenous Alaskan stories are unique in the world, come with a rich depth and closeness to ancestors, and give the world a view to sophisticated, complex cultures most don’t even know exist.
Even with some “cheating” for multiple-book days, there are so many great Alaska Native books not on this list. If you have some of your own favorites, I invite you to add them below!
Day 1: “Two Old Women” by Velma Wallis (Fiction)
Day 2: “Blonde Indian” by Ernestine Hayes (Memoir)
Day 3: “Eagle Drums” by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson (YA Fiction)
Day 4: “Roughly for the North” by Carrie Ayagaduk Ojanen (Poetry)
Day 5: “A Yupiaq Worldview” by Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley (Nonfiction)
Day 6: “Attu Boy” by Nick Golodoff (Memoir)
Day 7: “Gagaan X’Usyee: Below the Foot of the Sun” by X̱’unei Lance Twitchell (Poetry)
Day 8: “Button Up! Fall in Alaska” by Angela Y. Gonzalez (Board Book)
Day 9: “Once Upon An Eskimo Time” by Edna Wilder (Memoir)
Day 10: “Museum of Unnatural Histories” by Annie Wenstrup (Poetry)
Day 11: “Am’ala” by Frank Henry Kaash Katasse, illustrated by David Lang (Picture Book)
Day 12: “Hyperboreal” by Joan Naviyuk Kane (Poetry)
Day 13: “The Alaska Native Reader” edited by Maria Sháa Tláa Williams (Essays)
Day 14: “Celebration” by Lily Hope, illustrated by Kesley Mata Foote (Picture Book)
Day 15: “Fifty Miles from Tomorrow” by William Iġġiaġruk Hensley (Memoir)
Day 16: “Courtesans of Flounder Hill” by Ishmael Hope (Poetry)
Day 17: “How Raven Got His Crooked Nose” by Barbara J. Atwater and Ethan J. Atwater, illustrated by Mindy Dwyer (Picture Book)
Day 18: “Live Woven With Song” by Nora Marks Dauenhauer (Poetry/Stories)
Day 19: “My Side of the River” by Elias Kelly (Memoir)
Day 20: “Sivuliiq” by Lily H. Tuzroyluke (Fiction)
Day 21: “The Winter Walk” by Loretta Outwater Cox (Historical Fiction)
Day 22: “Bekk’aatugh Ts’uhuney: Stories We Live by” by Catherine Attla (Folktales)
Day 23: “So How Long Have You Been Native?” by Alexis C. Bunten (Memoir)
Day 24: “Uluit Atuqtaatka: Ulus I Use” by Kunaq Marjorie Tahbone (Picture Book)
Day 25: “How the Devil’s Club Came to Be” by Miranda Rose Kaagwil Worl, illustrated by Michaela Goade (Picture Book)
Day 26: “Inuksuk” by Adeline Peter Raboff (Nonfiction History)
Day 27: Indigenous Alaska language book collection
Day 28: Alaska Native coloring books collection
Day 29: “Berry Song” by Michaela Goade (Picture Book) and “The Tao of Raven” by Ernestine Hayes (Memoir)
Day 30: “Raven Steals the Toilet Paper” by Vera Starbard, illustrated by Don Starbard, and “A Tlingit Christmas Caroling and Coloring Book” by Don Starbard and Vera Starbard