BOSTON, MA – October 29, 2026 – To honor National Native American Heritage Month, the Boston Public Library (BPL) is releasing Native Lives, Native Stories, a booklist of recent titles focusing on the cultures, histories, experiences, and diversity of Native American communities. Celebrated annually in November, Native American Heritage Month acknowledges the unique traditions and important contributions of Indigenous Peoples. The BPL will also observe Native American Heritage Month by hosting special events across branches.
The Native Lives, Native Stories booklist, featuring selected books written by Indigenous authors or about Indigenous history and culture, is compiled by staff librarians from the Chinatown, Connolly, and Hyde Park branches, along with staff from the Central Library in Copley Square. The 70 titles comprising Native Lives, Native Stories highlight selections for adults, teenagers, and children by authors such as Louise Erdrich, Xelena González, Stephen Graham Jones, Danica Nava, and Cynthia Leitich Smith. Genres from this collection include biography, expressions, history and contemporary issues, and fiction.
Each book listing contains a brief synopsis and is accompanied by an image of the book cover as well as classification information. In addition to print books, select titles are available as eBooks or audiobooks.
Along with the booklist, the BPL will celebrate National Native American Heritage Month with lectures, film screenings, book group discussions, and more. The full list of programs can be found at bpl.org/events. Highlights include:
- November Film Series at Connolly - Smoke Signals | November 4, Connolly | Part of the Native American Heritage Film Series, view Smoke Signals (2011), a road-trip comedy-drama that follows two young Coeur d'Alene men traveling from their Idaho reservation to New Mexico to retrieve an estranged father's ashes. Along the way, the duo confronts grief and friendship while offering a poignant, humorous look at modern Native American identity.
- Author Talk: Linford D. Fisher — Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History | November 5, Central | Historian Linford D. Fisher discusses his 2026 nonfiction book Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History, revealing the extensive history of Indigenous enslavement and land dispossession in the Americas beginning after 1492. He examines how colonizers enslaved millions of Native people and how Indigenous labor and stolen land contributed to the growth of the colonies and the United States, and connects these overlooked histories to major events, including the American Revolution and Civil War.
- The Scoop: Book Club — Dream Drawings | November 10, South End | Discuss Dream Drawings: Configurations of a Timeless Kid by N. Scott Momaday. Momaday’s love of language and storytelling is on full display in this brilliant new collection comprising one hundred sketches or “dream drawings”—furnishings of the mind—as he calls them. Influenced by his Native American heritage and its oral storytelling traditions, there are prose poems about nature, animals, warriors, and hunters, as well as meditations that explore themes of love, loss, time, and memory.
- Documentary Club: Bring Them Home – Aiskótáhkapiyaaya | November 14, Jamaica Plain | A screening and group discussion of Bring Them Home: Aiskótáhkapiyaaya, a 2024 documentary film that follows Blackfoot leaders Ervin Carlson and Paulette Fox as they work to restore wild bison to their ancestral lands, preserve Indigenous traditions, and support ecological health.
- Hubbub Bowl Games with the Tomaquag Museum (Ages 6-12) | November 17, Central | A visitor from the Tomaquag Museum hosts a workshop to learn a traditional Native American art form and game. This program includes a game demonstration, gameplay, and art. Kids will get to make their own hubbub bowl game!
- November Film Series at Connolly – Once Upon a River | November 18, Connolly | Part of the Native American Heritage Film Series, Once Upon a River (2019) tells the story of a Native American teenager in 1970s rural Michigan who sets off on a voyage down the Stark River after a sudden family tragedy forces her to flee home. Journeying alone to search for her estranged mother, she confronts survival, resilience, and personal identity.
- Nonfiction Night: The Paranormal Ranger | November 19 | Brighton | A group book discussion of former Navajo Ranger Stanley Milford Jr.'s 2024 chilling and clear-eyed memoir, The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained, which shares details of his investigations into bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained over the course of his illustrious career serving the Navajo Nation.
- November Film Series at Connolly – Four Souls of Coyote | November 25, Connolly | Part of the Native American Heritage Film Series, Four Souls of a Coyote (2023) showcases a modern-day group of Native American teenagers clashing with oil pipeline executives threatening their ancestral land. As tension mounts, an elder shares an ancient Indigenous creation myth that underscores humanity’s vital connection to nature.
Physical copies of the Native Lives, Native Stories booklist will be available at all BPL locations starting November 1, 2026; it can also be accessed digitally. In addition, the booklist and information about National Native American Heritage Month programs will also appear on the BPL website at bpl.org and on the BPL social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram).
Patrons can view many years' worth of prior affinity booklists, such as those from Black History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Disability Pride Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month in an online archive.
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Established in 1848, the Boston Public Library is a pioneer of public library service in America. It was the first large, free municipal library in the United States; the first public library to lend books; the first to have a branch library; and the first to have a children’s room.
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