Reviewed by Debbie Reese
Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature
Author: Christine Day
What I particularly like about Christine Day’s books is that she includes things that I know kids know about. For example, young people are way into video games and gamer culture. More about that later.
Early on in her book, we learn that Wesley and her mom are living with Wesley’s grandpa, aunt and uncle, and their baby. Across Indian Country, you’ll find Native homes where more than one generation is living together. Generally speaking, white families in the U.S. don’t live that way but Native ones often do. Whether it is just the way it was from day one or if it is because someone is in need of help, you’ll often find more than one generation living together. Continue reading at American Indians in Children’s Literature.
We Still Belong by Christine Day
Published by HarperCollins on August 1, 2023
Genres: American Indians First Nations Metis Inuit
Pages: 256
Reading Level: Grades 6-8
ISBN: 9780063064584
Review Source: American Indians in Children's Literature
Also by this author: The Sea in Winter
Publisher's Synopsis: A thoughtful and heartfelt middle grade novel by American Indian Youth Literature Honor–winning author Christine Day (Upper Skagit), 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.
Wesley is proud of the poem she wrote for Indigenous Peoples’ Day — but the reaction from a teacher makes her wonder if expressing herself is important enough. And due to the specific tribal laws of her family’s Nation, Wesley is unable to enroll in the Upper Skagit tribe and is left feeling “not Native enough.” Through the course of the novel, with the help of her family and friends, she comes to embrace her own place within the Native community.
Christine Day's debut, I Can Make This Promise, was an American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Honor Book, was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus, School Library Journal, the Chicago Public Library, and NPR, and was also picked as a Charlotte Huck Honor Book. Her sophomore novel, The Sea in Winter, was an American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Honor Book, as well as named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus and School Library Journal.
We Still Belong is an accessible, enjoyable, and important novel from an author who always delivers.
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