Winner

Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories
edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Middle School, High School    Heartdrum/HarperCollins    352 pp.
8/25    9780063314269    $19.99

This anthology edited by Muscogee author Smith includes eighteen stories by North American Indigenous authors including Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache), Angeline Boulley (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), Byron Graves (Ojibwe and Lakota), Eric Gansworth (Onondaga, Eel Clan, Tuscarora Nation), David A. Robertson (Norway House Cree Nation), Andrea L. Rogers (Cherokee Nation), Brian Young (Navajo Nation), and many others. The literary conceit that unifies these stories is a magical “NDN Country” frybread drive-in that serves up Native comfort food and wisdom, a “collective dream” where young people in need of connection or healing find themselves among an intertribal community of all ages. Elders are featured in every story, often teaching younger people about traditional cooking, crafts, or storytelling but always in tribally specific and character-driven ways that steer clear of clichés. Some topics recur (first love; grief at the death of a grandparent; overcoming fear, jealousy, or loneliness), and grappling with the meaning of Native identity is a common theme. Although many stories mention historical events and all of them touch on family heritage, they also feel quite of-the-moment: plots incorporate smartphones, DMs, social media, and online role-playing games. The short-story format keeps character arcs brief, but some characters appear in multiple stories, linking them and making for cohesive world-building. Story glossaries, notes, and author bios are appended. LARA K. AASE

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

Honors

Sisters in the Wind
by Angeline Boulley
High School    Holt    384 pp.
9/25    9781250328533    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781250328540    $11.99

Lucy Smith knows that someone is following her, and she decides it’s time to leave town. At first she suspects the handsome Potawatomi man who insists on talking to her at the Michigan diner where she works, but it turns out the man—who introduces himself as John Jameson, a lawyer who helps Native children who were in foster care find their communities—has only been in town for two days, and can’t be the culprit. Then someone bombs the diner, and Lucy’s resulting broken leg needs to heal before she can leave. While in the hospital, she is introduced to Mr. Jameson’s friend Daunis Fontaine (the protagonist of Firekeeper’s Daughter, rev. 5/21), who claims to know Lucy’s biological mother and her late sister, both Ojibwe. Lucy is forced to think about why her father wouldn’t talk about her mother when he was alive and what it means to be Native when she grew up being told she was white. Boulley (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) tells a powerful story about the importance of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which aims to ensure that Native children in foster care are placed with Native families. Lucy’s story is related in chapters that alternate between her present (in 2009, between the events of Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed, rev. 5/23) and her past. Slowly unfolding, sometimes shocking revelations keep pages turning. Boulley’s latest gripping thriller poignantly expands familiar characters’ stories and introduces a compelling new heroine. NICHOLL DENICE MONTGOMERY

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The House No One Sees
by Adina King
High School    Feiwel    304 pp.
3/25    978125033719    $19.99

REVIEW TO COME

Cope Field
by T. L. Simpson
High School    Flux    272 pp.
4/25    Paper ed.  9781635831054    $14.99

REVIEW TO COME

Song of a Blackbird
by Maria van Lieshout; illus. by the author
Middle School, High School    First Second    256 pp.
1/25    9781250869814    $25.99
Paper ed.  9781250869821    $17.99
e-book ed.  9781250412119    $11.99

This deeply personal and poetic graphic novel illustrates the heroic actions of everyday Dutch people as they resisted the Nazi regime, as well as the lingering trauma inherited by subsequent generations. An omniscient blackbird with the ability to “sail between time and place” guides readers, and at times the characters, through the events of two seemingly disparate timelines. In 1943, headstrong Dutch university student Emma becomes involved in the covert relocation of Jewish children. When a group of defiant artists recruits Emma to participate in the forging and transportation of official documents, the stakes escalate with deadly consequences. In 2011, Annick, a young woman living in Amsterdam, sets out on an unexpected journey through her family’s complicated WWII history, uncovering her ill grandmother’s long-lost brother (and potential bone marrow donor). Art (embodied by the blackbird) as an act of defiance and source of inspiration is central to the story, with a series of handmade prints serving as a catalyst for revealing hard truths, merging past with present. The present-tense prose and print-block style digital illustrations are equally expressive, often hinting at meaning through an evocative phrase or dramatic shift in page layout. Van Lieshout seamlessly integrates black-and-white photographs, many from the actual resistance group Underground Camera, into panels and layouts. Extensive back matter highlights the real-life individuals and events that inspired and informed the narrative. PATRICK GALL

From the March/April 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

For more, click on the tag ALA 2026.