How I Spent Native American Heritage Month

November is coming to a close, and while I am usually intentional about engaging in diverse activities, especially related to books, I realized upon discussing it with someone, that I had a really robust Native American Heritage Month, and I wanted to share some of the cool book-related, and non-book related, things I did this month!

DAR Meeting–Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

I help coordinate the programming for my DAR Chapter‘s monthly meetings, and in November, we hosted Mary Pavel, an attorney who works on tribal litigation, who helped us learn more about the impact of DV on Indigenous Women, the importance of the Violence Against Women Act, and more. It was a really eye-opening discussion.

DAR Book Club–Night of the Living Rez

My DAR Book club then read Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty for our book club! It’s a great book that’s perfect for fans of Tommy Orange, and my book club DEVOURED There, There.

Author Talk: Malika Wilbur and Project 562

One of the two author talks I attended this month was at MLK Library where Malika Wilbur, the photographer and author behind Project 562, gave an amazing presentation. Project 562 was on the Carnegie Longlist this year!

Author Talk: Emily Bowen Cohen and Two Tribes

The other talk I attended was at the Shirlington Library in Arlington and was with Emily Bowen Cohen and her graphic novel, Two Tribes. I loved this book and loved seeing her artistic process come to life.

Movie Screening: Killers of the Flower Moon

My DAR chapter teamed up with another chapter to FINALLY see a movie our book club has been waiting for: Killers of the Flower Moon. Three and a half hours is TOO long for a movie but the performances were really powerful.

Other Reading: JoJo Makoons, Jim Thorpe, etc

I did a fair amount of reading this month (you’ll see my recap soon, haha) in order to enjoy my freedom to read, but I did take care to read a few Indigenous books, particularly the new JoJo Makoons chapter book, a biography of Jim Thorpe, and We Are Water Protectors, which is the focus book of Beyond the Book for this season and featured in gorgeous artwork at the Lamond Riggs library.

DAR Spotlight on Literacy: Evaluating and Reading Indigenous Literature

I was so happy to host my colleague Allie for a special literacy spotlight for NSDAR on Evaluating and Reading Indigenous Literature. They’re brilliant and I love learning from them!