The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Native American

The Storyteller by Brandon Hobson

A May 2023 Read This Next! Title

Ziggy is just a regular kid. Well, a regular kid who encounters talking coyotes, singing frogs, prophesying snakes, truth-telling horses, a very interesting Grandma, and Nunnehi- spirits who protect those of Cherokee descent. Funny, sad, wise, and jam-packed with adventure, Ziggy’s story, The Storyteller, may be the very best book you’ll read in 2023.

The Storyteller by Brandon Hobson, (List Price: 17.99, Scholastic Press, 9781338797268, May 2023)

Reviewed by Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina

Still This Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie

Beautiful and poignant, this stunning ode to Cree life sings with love for the relations that sustain it—between people, with the land, and the communal practices that have endured through generations. Flett’s warm, evocative artwork is, as always, a treasure, imbuing Sainte-Marie’s lyrics with tender resonance.

Still This Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie, (List Price: $18.95, Greystone Kids, 9781771648073, September 2022)

Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson

One of the best things about reading is when you discover a book that brings back wonderful memories of childhood favorites. The Star That Always Stays made me remember two of my favorite books: Heidi and The Girl of the Limberlost. Norvia, the young heroine of The Star That Always Stays, and the young girls from these older stories long for love, acceptance and a true home. They face adversity and feel despair at times at a lack of control over their lives. Yet their strong faith, persistence in pursuing an education, and kind words from others around them sustain them and help them overcome the hardships in their lives. Norvia’s Ojibwe family and the pre-WWI setting provide a great background to this young woman growing up in 1914 Michigan. This is a new classic in the making and I hope we will have more stories about Norvia and her extended family.

The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson, (List Price: $17.99, Holiday House, 9780823450404, July 2022)

Reviewed by Mary Patterson, The Little Bookshop in Midlothian, Virginia

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