Literature for Children and Young Adults: American Indian Youth Literature Award

(AIYL Picture Book Award 2024)
Ebook available at: https://huntington.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1245956770

In this Native American story, Kara and Amanda are best-friend cousins. Then Kara leaves the city to move back to the Rez. Will their friendship stay the same?
This tender story about navigating change reminds readers that the power of friendship and family can bridge any distance.

(AIYL Picture Book Award 2022)
Herizon follows the journey of a young Diné girl as she helps her grandmother retrieve a flock of sheep with a magical scarf that transforms the world she knows.The inspiring story celebrates creativity and bravery, while promoting an inclusive future made possible through intergenerational strength and knowledge.

(AIYL Picture Book Award 2020)
When Uncle and Windy Girl and Itchy Boy attend a powwow, Windy watches the dancers in their jingle dresses and listens to the singers. She eats tasty food and joins family and friends around the campfire. Later, Windy falls asleep under the stars. Now Uncle's stories inspire other visions in her head: a bowwow powwow, where all the dancers are dogs. In these magical scenes, Windy sees veterans in a Grand Entry, and a visiting drum group, and traditional dancers, grass dancers, and jingle-dress dancers-all with telltale ears and paws and tails. All celebrating in song and dance. All attesting to the wonder of the powwow.

(AIYL Middle Grades Award 2024)
Audiobook available at: https://huntington.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1391984354

A thoughtful and heartfelt middle grade novel about a girl whose hopeful plans for Indigenous Peoples' Day (and plans to ask her crush to the school dance) go all wrong--until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family and community at an intertribal powwow.

(AIYL Middle School Award 2022)
Brian Young's powerful debut novel tells of a seemingly ordinary Navajo boy who must save the life of a Water Monster--and comes to realize he's a hero at heart.

(AIYL Middle School Award 2020)
In this moving middle-grade novel drawing upon Umpqua author Charlene Willing McManis's own tribal history, Regina must find out: Who is Regina Petit? Is she Indian? Is she American? And will she and her family ever be okay?

(AIYL Young Adult Award 2022) Gansworth tells his story, the story of his family--of Onondaga among Tuscaroras--of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds. Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

(AIYL Young Adult Award 2020)
New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Leitich Smith turns to realistic fiction with the thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school -- and first love.