Native American books to read on Thanksgiving

Reading a book by or about a Native American is a small way of acknowledging, alongside the traditional gluttonous meal, what America is built on

For many Americans, Thanksgiving is a time spent in celebration of the wacky pleasures of the heteronormative nuclear family and gorging on industrial poultry and its associated trimmings. For others, it’s a more fraught holiday. Perhaps you really hate the scramble to get to the overcrowded bus/train/airplane, not to mention the expense. Perhaps you don’t get along with your family. Or perhaps you don’t have one.

And perhaps you feel, well, guilty about celebrating a holiday whose origin story is at best murky and at worst a racist myth that covers up the fact that most of the time, colonials and Native Americans weren’t sitting down to friendly dinners to give thanks for each other. Instead, the former were bent on conquering and exterminating the latter.

Continue reading...