Fiction

Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descent, not that she really even knew how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesn’t accept her either. And so begins her quirky habits to gain acceptance. Apple’s name, chosen by her Indian mother on her deathbed, has a double meaning: treasured apple of my eye, but also the negative connotation—a person who is red, or Indian, on the outside, but white on the inside. After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in northern North Dakota, for the first time. Apple experiences conflict as she deals with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while trying to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man who has a violent, granite-sized chip on his shoulder because he loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man. Yet, as Apple meets her Indian relatives this summer, she finds that she just may have found a place to belong. One by one, each character—ranging from age five to eighty-five—teaches her, through wit and wisdom, what it means to be a Native person, but also to be a human being while finding her place in the world. Apple shatters Indian stereotypes and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color.

Debut Young Adult Native American novel, by Dawn Quigley. Hardcover. 268 pp.

Winner of the 2018 Moonbeam Children's Book Award for Young Adult Fiction--General and the 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Honors Award

Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descent, not that she really even knew how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesn’t accept her either. And so begins her quirky habits to gain acceptance. Apple’s name, chosen by her Indian mother on her deathbed, has a double meaning: treasured apple of my eye, but also the negative connotation—a person who is red, or Indian, on the outside, but white on the inside. After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in northern North Dakota, for the first time. Apple experiences conflict as she deals with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while trying to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man who has a violent, granite-sized chip on his shoulder because he loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man. Yet, as Apple meets her Indian relatives this summer, she finds that she just may have found a place to belong. One by one, each character—ranging from age five to eighty-five—teaches her, through wit and wisdom, what it means to be a Native person, but also to be a human being while finding her place in the world. Apple shatters Indian stereotypes and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color.

Winner of the 2018 Moonbeam Children's Book Award for Young Adult Fiction--General and the 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Honors Award

Ryan Christiansen's tale of a twelve-year-old who answers an ad saying, "Boy Wanted," takes the reader to the disturbed depths of the abandoned and vulnerable, those immobilized by the fear that their own behavior is what made a predator behave badly. When Alvi's father, a failed auctioneer in Red River, North Dakota, becomes tangled up in bootlegging and leaves town during the Great Depression, Alvi and his mother find themselves in dire straits. Hiring himself out for work, Alvi helps an old man build a ski jump along the river. Alvi learns about his Norwegian antecedents and ski jumps and the young girl, Rose, and other things less welcomed.

ISBN # 978-0-911042-83-2
Copyright 2015
Adult novel.
123 pages
Paperback.

The lives and schemes of frontier politicians, Northern Pacific Railroad executives, bonanza farmers, and homesteaders converge in the story of Frances Houghton Bingham, who marries the son of a Red River Valley bonanza farmer in order to remain near her new husband’s sister. Emotionally complex, willful and resourceful, Frances is seduced by the myths of opportunity driving the settlement of Dakota Territory, and dares to dream of a new world in which to realize her unconventional desires. Providing a counterpoint to the dramatic risks taken by Frances is the generous voice of Kirsten Knudson, the daughter of Norwegian homesteaders. As Kirsten grows from a voluble girl to a formidable woman, her observations (equal parts absurdity and insight) reveal the heart of the novel.

Jamie Parsley’s first book of short fiction contains 15 stories (and one play) of Dakota at mid-Twentieth Century, a time when morals, ideals and society in general were in flux. Capturing the “Prairie Gothic” genre, these stories are, at turns, tender and haunting, mystical and stoically unflinching, furtive and emotionally raw, violent and humorous. These characters in them struggle with overwhelming loss, tenuous faith, persistent doubt, nagging obsessions, haunted affection and, of course, an unpredictable natural world in which they ultimately find themselves exposed and vulnerable.

ISBN - 978-0-911042-80-1
Copyright 2014
Softcover
200 pages