Nov 12 2025
Extremely happy I could finally fit in some thematic reading for National Native American Heritage Month, especially with Emily beating me to it with her terrific review of the Turtle Island cookbook! And in a not insignificant way, Mapping The Interior reminded me very much of a shorter, scarier and way darker version of one …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/12/mapping-the-interior-by-stephen-graham-jones/
Sep 09 2025
So happy to celebrate five years of Street Noise’s dissident graphic novel publishing by featuring a review of this incredibly moving autobiographical tale! I’m not gonna lie, the first four parts of Jim Terry’s deeply personal graphic memoir Come Home, Indio, are tough reading. Jim, or JT as he’s often called, was born to an …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/09/come-home-indio-by-jim-terry/
Apr 25 2024
Y’know, when I first said yes to this collection of short stories based on the indigenous storytelling traditions of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples, I was expecting something very different. I thought that this would be a collection of old myths given a fresh retelling. And there is a little of that, definitely, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/04/25/the-forgetters-by-greg-sarris/
Nov 24 2023
For the longest time, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. It’s an occasion for people to gather and reflect on all the things they’re thankful for, which is in my opinion the most meaningful reason people can come together. But then, ofc, I learned about the American holiday’s terrible origins in colonization and betrayal, whitewashed over …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/24/eagle-drums-by-nasugraq-rainey-hopson/
Mar 14 2023
What a delightful picture book introducing Native American words and concepts to readers, young and old! Amik is a young beaver who is excited to host a gathering of her cousins at her river home. Her little sister Nishiime is curious but shy, and vanishes almost as soon as the others begin to arrive. While …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/14/biindigen-amik-says-welcome-by-nancy-cooper-and-joshua-mangeshig-pawis-steckley/
Nov 21 2022
I didn’t understand what “creative non-fiction” was supposed to be until I read the first two magnificent essays in this collection, ironically even before Joshua Whitehead begins his somewhat disparaging essay on the subject. As with any art, there’s a strong sense of “I know it when I see it”, and I definitely knew I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/21/making-love-with-the-land-essays-by-joshua-whitehead/
Nov 04 2022
with Cree translations by Dolores Sand & Gayle Weenie. Happy Native American Heritage Month! Meant to post this earlier but had the worst time finding this book in the mess that is currently my household, the result of two busy working adults and three small children who can make an outsize mess. Anyhoo, my eight …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/04/stolen-words-kimotinaniwiw-itwewina-by-melanie-florence-gabrielle-grimard/
Nov 08 2021
It’s sheer coincidence that I saved this for Native American Heritage Month, but I’m so glad the Hugos forced me to finally get around to reading it! Elatsoe is the full name of Lipan Apache Ellie Bride, a teenage girl who lives in a Texas much like our own but with certain significant differences. For …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/08/elatsoe-by-darcie-little-badger/
Nov 30 2020
With Native American Heritage Month coming to a close, I’m so glad I could finally get to this graphic novel! The history and, frankly, present-day reality of America’s indigenous peoples is too often overlooked, particularly in relation to the settlers and policies that continue to drive them to the margins of our nation, if not …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/30/ghost-river-the-fall-and-rise-of-the-conestoga-by-lee-francis-iv-weshoyot-alvitre-will-fenton/
Sep 11 2018
Tommy Orange is such a superlative writer that he can do things that irritate the hell out of me in other books and somehow make them work. And better than work: he creates magic on the page. It’s not really a spoiler to say that There There ends with multiple storylines left unresolved. In the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/11/there-there-by-tommy-orange/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire