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.
