At the halfway point of our summer break, we tribal college faculty members begin marking time differently. One’s mindset shifts from reflecting upon the academic year that just passed to focusing upon the new year yet to come. While not quite ready to jump back into the classroom, we’ve decided which lesson plans to keep, which to revise, and which need a complete rewrite. My fellow academics, this column is intended to address some of your pedagogical perplexities. It’s a summary of some worthwhile books from the past year that should find a home in your classrooms. As you begin to cement your agenda for the semester ahead, it’s my hope that these texts will be ones that help you connect your students with contemporary ideas. Without further ado, here’s some notable books published this year.

A Voice Like Mine: A Memoir by Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) is filled with stories of personal and family perseverance. Haaland describes how she assented to become one of the first Native women elected to Congress before being the first appointed to a U.S. president’s cabinet. Haaland not only chronicles how she shattered glass ceilings, but she also honors the Native and non-Native people who helped her along the way. Haaland reminds the ambitious that true success is possible when one’s actions are driven by commitments to their constituents. Written in the voice of a respected auntie, Haaland recognizes that autobiography’s highest function is to inspire.  

A Python’s Kiss: Stories by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) is the latest collection from a master of American letters. Whether chronicling a would-be suitor’s fistfight with an overprotective father, a generous bachelor’s vacillation between want of companionship and the need to obscure his hidden life, or the possibility of accidental death while playing the high school game “assassins,” Erdrich creates rich characters who are uniquely human. Grounded in metaphors and often buttressed by redemption and humor, there’s a complexity to the stories Erdrich tells. Alongside illustrations created by Aza Erdrich Abe, this latest collection further solidifies Erdrich’s place as a writer whose every publication commands attention.

Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull by Tom Clavin is another worthwhile entry by one of the most consistent and compelling writers of American history. Clavin’s gift for weaving together the work of his predecessors into a single narrative offers a masterclass in both scholarship and storytelling, and this text published on the centennial anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn is especially timely. Of course, the book’s namesakes all meet tragic ends, but Clavin reminds readers what their lives meant to both their contemporaries and the countless Americans who came after them. Having a knack for separating fact from fiction, Clavin is a reliable voice for the historically curious.

Treat Them as Buffalo by Blair Palmer Yoxall (Métis) is a dark novel set in Canada in 1885 during the end of Louis Riel’s resistance to encroachment on Métis lands. Narrated by the teenage protagonist, Niko, the novel centers on trying to find a lost cousin before he is mutilated by captors. While the novel explores issues of masculinity and violence, some of the central characters are strong, self-sufficient women who take action when others refuse to do so. Yet, it’s Niko’s voice that gives Palmer’s work its power, as the young man realizes that his youth has abruptly ended and the horrors of the world are not matters of child’s play.

The Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis and Clark by Craig Fehrman is a historical account of the infamous journey that chronicles the complexity of the origins of the United States’ westward expansion. Fehrman’s rich examination of the writings and experiences of household names, including Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Thomas Jefferson, York, and Sacagawea, reveals the complexity that drove their motivations, while his illumination of lessor known individuals such as Black Buffalo highlights the intricacies of how early Indigenous diplomacy approached colonization and encroachment. Fehrman is a historian who understands the wealth of knowledge housed within primary documents, turning his research into engaging prose that reteaches a story that many Americans thought they already knew.

Shards of Silence by Brian Lee Young (Navajo) is a young adult novel that dramatizes the complexity of boarding school experiences across the generations. Derrick’s journey from his Navajo community in New Mexico to attend the elite Sagefield Academy in Connecticut separates him physically from his great-grandmother but reveals how the trauma of her own educational experiences reverberates in the current generation. While the pressure to succeed in a new way of life has changed in the modern era, the repercussions of separating youths from their Indigenous lifeways remains constant. Mingling Navajo words into a predominantly English text, Young’s work challenges readers to consider the adverse effects of silence. 

As always, this list is hardly exhaustive, but it does contain texts that can enrich classroom discussions. I hope that you spend some time with each of them in the waning summer months. They might be just the thing to plug the hole in your syllabus, as nothing fortifies one for the return to the classroom like the ideas within in a really good book.

Ryan Winn, PhD, teaches in the Liberal Studies Department at College of Menominee Nation. 

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the Inquisitive Academic or any other opinion columns published by the Tribal College Journal (TCJ) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TCJ or the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. 

References

Clavin, T. (2026). Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull. New York: St. Martin.

Erdrich, L. (2026). A Python’s Kiss: Stories. New York: Harper.

Fehrman, C. (2026). The Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis and Clark. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Haaland, D. (2026). A Voice Like Mine: A Memoir. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Young, B. L. (2026). Shards of Silence. New York: Heartdrum.

Yoxall, B.P. (2026). Treat Them As Buffalo. New York: Algonquin.