Previous Titles
2023-2024: Firekeeper’s Daughter
Firekeeper’s Daughter is a novel by Angeline Boulley that describes the journey of Daunis Fontaine, an eighteen-year-old girl who feels caught between two worlds: her hometown and the Ojibwe reservation. After witnessing a murder, Daunis is pulled into an FBI investigation centered on a deadly new drug. Using her knowledge of chemistry and traditional Ojibwe medicine, she reluctantly goes undercover. Amid growing danger, deception, and deaths, Daunis grapples with her identity as an Anishinaabe woman and must decide how far she’s willing to go to protect her community, even if it costs her everything she holds dear.
The story is based on Angeline’s own experiences growing up in her Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
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Native American Resources
Tribal Resources
Michigan Tribes
*Note—This list is not all inclusive. If you have more resources to share please send to aross@mihumanities.org.
- Bay Mills Indian Community
- Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians
- Hannahville Indian Community
- Keweenaw Bay Indian Community
- Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians
- Little River Band of Ottawa Indians
- Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians
- Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians
- Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi
- Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians
- Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe
- Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
- Gun Lake Tribe
Resources
Tribal Websites
About Repatriation
Articles
Programming Resources
Native American Performers
- Judy Pamp
- Mary Bush
- Angus Bush
Articles
- “Abuse Remembered” by Krystal Nurse, Lansing State Journal, January 9, 2022
Complementary Resources
- American Indian Boarding Schools: An Exploration of Global & Cultural Cleansing(Curriculum Guide)
- Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences 1879–2000 edited by L. Tsianina Lomawaima, Brenda J. Child, Margaret L. Archuleta
- Beadwork & Textiles of the Ottawa by Harbor Sprints Historical Commission (book)
- Beads: Their Use by Upper Great Lakes Indians by Grand Rapids Public Museum (book)
- Gatherings: Great Lakes Native Basket and Box Makers edited by Marsha MacDowell (book)
- Great Lakes Indian Art edited by David W. Penney (book)
- Indian Clothing of the Great Lakes by Sheryl Hartman (book)
- Native Americans in Michigan: A Bibliography of Material in the Clarke Historical Library
- Ojibwa Crafts by Carrie A. Lyford (book)
- Ottawa Quillwork on Birchbark by Harbor Springs Historical Commission
Complementary Books
- There There by Tommy Orange
- This Tender Land by William Kent Krueguer
- Wiijiwaaganag More than Brothers by Peter Razor
Audiovisual Media – coming soon
2021-2022: The Women of the Copper Country
Mary Doria Russell’s novel The Women of the Copper Country is a fictionalized history of the 1913 copper miners’ strike in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Following the story of 25-year-old strike leader, Anna “Big Annie” Klobuchar Clemenc, Russell draws our attention to the women and immigrants who risked their lives to fight unregulated capitalist exploitation.
2019-2020: What the Eyes Don’t See
What the Eyes Don’t See is Dr. Mona Hanna’s account of her discovery that Flint’s children were being poisoned by lead leaching into the city’s drinking water. Dr. Mona’s willingness to fight for children and tirelessly advocate for change in and beyond Michigan is powerfully evident as she follows the science and her young patients’ experiences to uncover one of the state’s worst public health catastrophes.
2017-18: X: A Novel
X: A Novel is a fictionalized account of the early years of Malcolm X. Malcolm was a young man with boundless potential but with the odds stacked against him. After losing his father under suspicious circumstances and his mother to a mental health hospital, Malcolm fell into a life of petty crime and eventually went to prison. Instead of letting prison be his downfall, Malcom found a religion, a voice; and the podium that would eventually make him one of the most prominent figures in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement.
X: A Novel, is a tale of reinvention and redemption. Written by Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcom X’s third daughter, and Kekla Magoon, X: A Novel is a young-adult novel with a writing style and message that will appeal to readers of all ages. Join us as we work to explore the Michigan roots of one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century.
2015-16: Station Eleven
Station Eleven is the story of the Traveling Symphony, a troupe of Shakespearean actors and orchestral musicians traveling the shores of the Great Lakes in a post-apocalyptic Michigan. Striving to maintain their humanity in the altered landscape of a world where 99% of the population has been wiped out by a flu pandemic, the Traveling Symphony operates under one credo: “Survival is insufficient.”
Station Eleven is set in a world turned upside down but is ultimately an exploration of people surviving and remaking their lives by preserving the qualities that make us human: culture, art, and the humanities.
2013-14: Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret
Annie’s Ghosts, by Detroit native and Washington Post Associate Editor Steve Luxenberg, is part memoir, part detective story, and part history. As the author tries to understand his mom’s reasons for hiding her sister’s existence, he takes readers on a journey into his mother’s world of the 1930s and ’40s, where he explores how a poor, immigrant family manages life with a child who has special needs.
Annie’s Ghosts is a story about family secrets, personal journeys, genealogy, mental disability and illness, poverty, and immigration. It is a story of re-framing one’s self-understanding once a family secret is revealed, providing insight into how our identities are shaped by learning something shockingly new about our family history.
2011-12: Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
Arc of Justice, by Kevin Boyle, is a masterful recounting of a landmark historical event, culminating in an epic legal battle that helped lay the foundation of the civil rights movement.
In 1925, African American physician Ossian Sweet purchased a home in a white neighborhood in Detroit. Determined to protect his family and property, Sweet chose to defend himself from the mob organized to drive him out.
Arc of Justice provides essential historical background as Americans continue to confront issues of tolerance and equality.
2009-10: Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: A Memoir
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is a memoir that chronicles author Beth Nguyen’s migration from Vietnam in 1975, and her coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the 1980s. Along the way, she struggles to construct her own cultural identity from a menagerie of uniquely American influences.
2007-08: The Nick Adams Stories
The Nick Adams Stories is a literary masterpiece made in Michigan. The author, Ernest Hemingway, spent the majority of his first 22 summers in Northern Michigan. These experiences played an essential role in his development as one of the world’s most significant writers.
The Nick Adams Stories chronicle a young man’s coming of age in a series of linked short stories. As Nick matures, he grapples with the complexities of adulthood, including war, death, marriage, and family.