The Song of the Butterflies,directed by Nuria Frigola Torrent, is a true story about Rember Yahuarcani, an Indigenous painter from the White Heron clan of the Uitoto Nation in Peru. He left home to pursue a successful career in Lima, but when he finds himself in a creative rut, he returns home to his Amazonian community of Pebas to visit his father, a painter, and his mother, a sculptor. Through the stories and dreams of his parents and his grandmother, he confronts the horrors his community faced as a result of the rubber boom in Peru, immersing himself in the past so that he can rediscover his creativity.

Adult Non-Fiction

Alvarez, Alex.Native America and the Question of Genocide.Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
This book explores the destructive beliefs of the European settlers and then looks at topics, including disease, war, and education, through the lens of genocide. Native America and the Question of Genocideshows the diversity of Native American experiences post-contact and illustrates how tribes relied on ever-evolving and changing strategies of confrontation and accommodation, depending on their locations and the time periods and individuals involved, and how these often resulted in very different experiences. Alvarez treats this difficult subject with sensitivity and uncovers the complex realities of this troubling period in American history.

Arnold, Chris Feliciano.The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First-Century Amazon.Picador, 2018.
Following doctors, detectives, environmental activists, and indigenous tribes, The Third Bank of the River traces the history of the Amazon from the arrival of the first Spanish flotilla to the drones that are now mapping unexplored parts of the forest. Grounded in rigorous firsthand reporting and in-depth research, Chris Feliciano Arnold’s portrait reveals a Brazil and an Amazon that are complex, bloody, and often tragic.

Campbell, David G.A Land of Ghosts: The Braided Lives of People and the Forest in Far Western Amazonia.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005.
David G. Campbell knows the people of the Amazon: the recently arrived colonists with their failing farms; the mixed-blood Caboclos, masters of hunting, fishing, and survival; and the refugee Native Americans. Campbell introduces us to two remarkable women, Dona Cabocla, a widow who raised six children on that lonely frontier, and Dona Ausira, A Nokini Native American who is the last speaker of her tribe’s age-old language. These people live in a land whose original inhabitants were wiped out by centuries of disease, slavery, and genocide, taking their traditions and languages with the—a land of ghosts.

Colwell, Chip.Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture.The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
A fascinating account of both the historical and current struggle of Native Americans to recover sacred objects that have been plundered and sold to museums. Museum curator and anthropologist Chip Colwell asks an all-important question: Who owns the past? Museums that care for historical objects, or the communities whose ancestors made them? This controversy escalated in recent years as hundreds of tribes have used a landmark 1990 federal law (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA) to recover their looted heritage from more than one thousand museums across the country.

De Bruhl, Marshall.The River Sea: The Amazon in History, Myth, and Legend. Counterpoint Press, 2010.
The River Sea is a compelling account of five centuries of the history, the myths, and the legends of Río Amazonas, the most fascinating body of water on Earth.

Goodman, Jordan.The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man’s Battle for Human Rights in South America’s Heart of Darkness.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
In September 1910, the activist Roger Casement arrived in the Amazon jungle on a mission for the British government: to investigate reports of widespread human-rights abuses in the forests along the Putumayo River. Accusations against Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana had been making their way back to London, and the rumors were on everybody’s lips: Arana was enslaving, torturing, and murdering the local Indians. Arana’s Peruvian Amazon Company, with its headquarters in London’s financial heart, was responsible. Casement was outraged and reported what he uncovered: nearly 30,000 Indians had died to produce 4,000 tons of rubber.

Jackson, Joe.The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire.Penguin Random House, 2008.
In this thrilling real-life account of bravery, greed, obsession, and ultimate betrayal, award- winning writer Joe Jackson brings to life the story of fortune hunter Henry Wickham and his collaboration with the empire that fueled, then abandoned him. In 1876, Wickham smuggled 70,000 rubber tree seeds out of the rainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England's most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds—and the history-making consequences—is the stuff of legend. The Thief at the End of the World is an exciting true story of reckless courage and ambition that perfectly captures the essential nature of Great Britain’s colonial adventure in South America.

Kopenawa, Davi and Albert, Bruce.The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman.The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013.
The Falling Sky is a remarkable first-person account of the life story and cosmo-ecological thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon. Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest—a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry.

Leahy, Cathy and Ryan, Judith.Colony: Australia 1779–1861/Frontier Wars. Thames & Hudson Australia Pty, Limited, 2019.
It is now over 250 years since James Cook and his crew set sail in the Endeavour to explore the Pacific. In 1770 they reached the east coast of a continent that has been inhabited for more than 65,000 years by many indigenous groups with different languages and diverse cultures. Cook’s landing marked the beginning of a history that still has repercussions today, a history that both unites and divides Australia and highlights the continuing need for reconciliation.

Mann, Charles C.1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Vintage Books, reprint 2011.
Contrary to what many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. As this important book, first published in 2005, reveals, the astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets and was larger than any contemporary European city. Cultures in what is now Mexico created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand.

Momaday, N. Scott.The Way to Rainy Mountain. University of New Mexico Press, reprint 2019.
The Way to Rainy Mountain, originally published in 1976, recalls the journey of Tai-me, the sacred Sun Dance doll, and of Tai-me’s people in three unique voices: the legendary, the historical, and the contemporary. It is also the personal journey of N. Scott Momaday, who, on a pilgrimage to the grave of his Kiowa grandmother, traversed the same route taken by his forebears and in so doing confronted his Kiowa heritage. It is an evocation of three things in particular: a landscape that is incomparable, a time that is gone forever, and the human spirit, which endures.

Nugent, Stephen L.The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Rubber Industry: An Historical Anthropology.Routledge, 2017.
In this engaging book, Stephen L. Nugent offers an in-depth historical anthropology of a widely recognized feature of the Amazon region, examining the dramatic rise and fall of the rubber industry. He considers rubber in the Amazon from the perspective of a long-term extraction industry that linked remote forest tappers to technical innovations central to the industrial transformation of Europe and North America, emphasizing the links between the social landscape of Amazonia and the global economy.

Reel, Monte.The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon.Scribner Books from Simon and Schuster, 2010.
Throughout the centuries, the Amazon has yielded many of its secrets, but it still holds a few great mysteries. In 1996, experts got their first glimpse of one: a lone Indian, a tribe of one, hidden in the forests of Southwestern Brazil. Previously uncontacted tribes are extremely rare, but a one-man tribe was unprecedented. And like all of the isolated tribes in the Amazonian frontier, he was in danger. Resentment of Indians can run high among settlers, and the consequences can be fatal. The discovery of the Indian prevented local ranchers from seizing his land and led a small group of men who believed that he was the last of a murdered tribe to dedicate themselves to protecting him.

Reséndez, Andrés.The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates in his myth-shattering The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of Natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors. Reséndez builds the incisive case that it was mass slavery—more than epidemics—that decimated Indian populations across North America. Through riveting new evidence, including testimonies of courageous priests, rapacious merchants, and Indian captives, The Other Slavery reveals nothing less than a key missing piece of American history.

Saunt, Claudio.Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory.W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.
In May 1830, the United States launched an unprecedented campaign to expel 80,000 Native Americans from their eastern homelands to territories west of the Mississippi River. In a firestorm of fraud and violence, thousands of Native Americans lost their lives, and thousands more lost their farms and possessions. The operation soon devolved into an unofficial policy of extermination, enabled by U.S. officials, Southern planters, and Northern speculators. Hailed for its searing insight, Unworthy Republic transforms our understanding of this pivotal period in American history.

Treuer, David.The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present. Riverhead Books, 2019.
Native American history didn’t end with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. David Treuer, who grew up Ojibwe on a Minnesota reservation, examines Native American culture from 1890 to the present in part-history and part-memoir format. Instead, American Indians have been incredibly resourceful to preserve their language, traditions, families, and existence.

Vilaça, Aparecida.Praying and Preying: Christianity in Indigenous Amazonia.University of California Press, 2016.
Praying and Preying offers one of the rare anthropological monographs on the Christian experience of contemporary Amazonian indigenous peoples, based on an ethnographic study of the relationship between the Wari', inhabitants of Brazilian Amazonia, and the Evangelical missionaries of the New Tribes Mission. Aparecida Vilaça turns to a vast range of historical, ethnographic, and mythological material related to both Wari' and missionary perspectives and the author’s own ethnographic field notes from her more than thirty-year involvement with the Wari' community.

Adult Fiction

Akiwenzie-Damm, Kateri et al.This Place.Highwater Press, 2019.
Explore the past 150 years through the eyes of Indigenous creators in this groundbreaking graphic anthology. Beautifully illustrated, these stories are a wild ride through magic realism, serial killings, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since contact.

Calvo, César.Three Halves of Ino Moxo: Teachings of the Wizard of the Upper Amazon.Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Award-winning Peruvian author César Calvo takes readers on a quest through the mysterious, dreamlike world of powerful Amazonian sorcerers.

Manrique, Jaime.Like This Afternoon Forever. Akashic Books, 2019.
For the last fifty years, Colombian drug cartels, various insurgent groups, and the government have fought over the control of the drug traffic, in the process destroying vast stretches of the Amazon, devastating Indian communities, and killing tens of thousands of homesteaders caught in the middle of the conflict. Inspired by these events, Jaime Manrique’s sixth novel, Like This Afternoon Forever, weaves in two narratives: the shocking story of a series of murders known internationally as the “false positives,” and the related story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers when they meet in the seminary.

Orange, Tommy.There There. Alfred A. Knopf, 2018.
There There is a relentlessly paced multigenerational story about violence and recovery, memory and identity, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. It tells the story of twelve characters, each of whom has private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow.

Silko, Leslie Marmon.Storyteller.Penguin Random House, reprint 2012.
Leslie Marmon Silko’s groundbreaking book Storyteller, first published in 1981, blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional and Western literary genres, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation, power, and identity; communicates Native American notions regarding time, nature, and spirituality; and explores how stories and storytelling shape people and communities.

Vargas Llosa, Mario.The Dream of the Celt. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.
In 1916, the Irish nationalist Roger Casement was hanged by the British government for treason. Casement had dedicated his extraordinary life to improving the plight of oppressed peoples around the world―especially the native populations in the Belgian Congo and the Amazon―but when he dared to draw a parallel between the injustices he witnessed in African and American colonies and those committed by the British in Northern Ireland, he became involved in a cause that led to his imprisonment and execution. Originally published in Spanish in 2010.

Wright, Alexis.Carpenteria.Giramondo Publishing, 2006.
Carpenteriais an epic of the Gulf country of North-Western Queensland. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centers on the powerful Phantom family, leaders of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob on the one hand and the white officials of Uptown and the neighboring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce.

Young Adult Non-Fiction

Charleyboy, Lisa and Leatherdale, Mary Beth, eds.Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices. Annick Press, reprint 2016.
Whether discussing the transformative power of art or music, the lasting trauma of residential schools, growing up poor, or achieving success, the contributors to this remarkable anthology all have something in common: a rich Native heritage that has informed who they are.

Dembicki, Matt, ed.Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection. Fulcrum Publishing, 2010.
All cultures have tales of the trickster—a crafty creature or being who uses cunning to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. The trickster disrupts the order of things, often humiliating others and sometimes themself. In Native American traditions, the trickster takes many forms, from coyote to rabbit to raccoon to raven. Tricksterbrings together Native American folklore and the world of comics.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne; adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese.An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People. Beacon Press, 2019.
Going beyond the story of America as a country “discovered” by a few brave men, Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity. The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

Ellis, Deborah.Looks Like Daylight: Voices of Indigenous Kids. Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2013.
Author Deborah Ellis travels across the continent, interviewing more than forty Native American kids and letting them tell their own stories. From Iqaluit to Texas, Haida Gwaii to North Carolina, their stories are sometimes heartbreaking, and often full of pride and hope.

Gray Smith, Monique.Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation. Orca Book Publishers, 2017.
Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous people has suffered as a result of both the residential school system and the lack of understanding of the historical and current impact of those schools. Healing and repairing that relationship requires education, awareness, and increased understanding of the legacy and the impacts still being felt by survivors and their families. Guided by acclaimed Indigenous author Monique Gray Smith, readers learn about the lives of survivors and listen to allies who are putting the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into action.

Yellowhorn, Eldon.What the Eagle Sees: Indigenous Stories of Rebellion and Renewal.Annick Press, 2018.
What do people do when their civilization is invaded? Indigenous people have been faced with disease, war, broken promises, and forced assimilation. Despite crushing losses and insurmountable challenges, they formed new nations from the remnants of old ones, they adopted new ideas and built on them, they fought back, and they kept their cultures alive.

Yellowhorn, Eldon and Lowinger, Kathy. Turtle Island: The Story of North America’s First People. Annick Press, 2019.
Based on archeological finds and scientific research, we now have a clearer picture of how the Indigenous people lived. Using that knowledge, the authors take the reader back as far as 14,000 years ago to imagine moments in time. A wide variety of topics are featured, from the animals that came and disappeared over time, to what people ate, how they expressed themselves through art, and how they adapted to their surroundings. The importance of storytelling among the Native peoples is always present to shed light on how they explained their world. The end of the book takes us to modern times, when the story of the Native peoples is both tragic and hopeful.

Young Adult Fiction

Allende, Isabel.City of the Beasts. Harper Perennial, 2003.
Fifteen year old Alexander Cold goes on an Amazonian adventure with his fearless grandmother Kate. She’s a magazine reporter gathering research in a remote area of the Amazon rainforest. The expedition group also includes a local guide, his daughter Nadia, an anthropologist, a doctor, and a local entrepreneur. They are searching for a legendary creature known as the Beast, when the teens are kidnapped by the mystical “People of the Mist.”

Anderson, Natalie C.City of Saints & Thieves. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2017.
In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn’t exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Tina’s mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city’s most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill’s personal study, she knows exactly who’s behind it.

Boulley, Angeline.Firekeeper’s Daughter. Henry Holt and Company, 2021.
Daunis Fontaine is an eighteen year old from the Ojibwe reservation in Michigan whose dreams of starting college are on hold after a family tragedy. Daunis witnesses a murder, which throws her into the middle of an FBI investigation surrounding a lethal new drug. She goes undercover to assist the FBI, drawing on her knowledge of Ojibwe traditional medicine and chemistry. More deaths and old wounds are exposed, threatening to tear Daunis from her community.

Craft, Aimee, illustrated by Luke Swinson.Treaty Words: For as Long as the Rivers Flow.Annick Press, 2021.
On the banks of the river that have been Mishomis’s home his whole life, he teaches his granddaughter to listen—to hear both the sounds and the silences, and so to learn her place in Creation. Most importantly, he teaches her about treaties—the bonds of reciprocity and renewal that endure for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow.

Dimaline, Cherie.The Marrow Thieves. Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc., 2017.
In a world nearly destroyed by global warming, the Indigenous people of North America are being hunted for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. French and his companions, struggling to survive, don’t yet know that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.

Morales, Yuyi.This Place: 150 Years Retold.Penguin Random House, 2018.
Explore the past 150 years through the eyes of Indigenous creators in this groundbreaking graphic novel anthology. Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through Indigenous wonderworks, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since contact.

Spillett, Tasha, illustrated by Natasha Donovan.Surviving the City.Highwater Press, 2018.
Surviving the City is a story about womanhood, friendship, resilience, and the anguish of a missing loved one. Miikwan and Dez are best friends. Miikwan is Anishinaabe; Dez is Inninew. Together, the teens navigate the challenges of growing up in an urban landscape. However, when Dez’s grandmother becomes sick, Dez is told she can’t stay with her anymore. With the threat of a group home looming, Dez disappears. Miikwan is devastated, and the wound of her missing mother resurfaces. Will Dez’s community find her before it’s too late? Will Miikwan be able to cope if they don’t? Colonialism and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people are explored.

Tingle, Tim.How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story. RoadRunner Press, 2013.
A Choctaw boy tells the story of his tribe’s removal from the only land his people had ever known, and how their journey to Oklahoma led him to become a ghost—one with the ability to help those he left behind.

Books for Younger Learners & Children

Blackburne, Livia.I Dream of Popo.Roaring Brook Press, 2021.
This delicate, emotionally rich picture book celebrates a special connection that crosses time zones and oceans as Popo and her granddaughter hold each other in their hearts forever.

Brown, Monica.Sharuko: El Arqueologo Peruano Julio C. Tello/Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello.Children’s Book Press, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2020.
A fascinating bilingual picture book biography of Peruvian archaeologist and national icon Julio C. Tello, who unearthed Peru's ancient cultures and fostered pride in the country’s Indigenous history. Growing up in the late 1800s, Julio Tello, an Indigenous boy, spent time exploring the caves and burial grounds in the foothills of the Peruvian Andes. Nothing scared Julio, not even the ancient human skulls he found. His bravery earned him the boyhood nickname Sharuko, which means brave in Quechua, the language of the Native people of Peru.

Fabiny, Sarah and WHO HQ, illustrated by Daniel Colon.Where Is the Amazon? Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2016.
The Amazon River basin teems with life—animal and plant alike. It’s a rainforest that is home to an estimated 390 billion individual trees, 2.5 million species of insects, and hundreds of amazing creatures and plants that can either cure diseases, or, like the poison dart frog, kill with a single touch. Where Is the Amazon? reveals the amazing scale of a single rainforest that we are still trying to understand and that, in many ways, supports our existence on this planet.

Flett, Julie.Birdsong.Greystone Kids, 2019.
After Katherena relocates to a small town with her mom, she befriends an elderly neighbor, Agnes. Both love art and nature, and Katherena shares her Cree heritage with Agnes. Birdsong focuses on their beautiful intergenerational friendship and the changing of the seasons.

Franchino, Vicky.Amazon Rain Forest.Cherry Lake Publishing, 2016.
Explore the Amazon rainforest and learn all about what it’s like to live in this biome, from what kinds of plants and animals live there to what kinds of weather it receives.

Harris, Tim.Wildlife Worlds: South America. Crabtree Publishing Company, 2020.
Take a captivating journey across the continent of South America to view the incredible array of plants and animals that live, hunt, and hide in South America’s distinct habitats. Stunning photographs take you deep inside the Amazon rainforest, across the wide pampas grasslands, by spectacular waterfalls, and high up in Andean lakes.

Lindstrom, Carole, illustrated by Michaela Goade.We Are Water Protectors.Roaring Brook Press, 2020.
Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, the bold and lyrical picture book We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption.

Mann, Charles C.Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491.Holt McDougal, 2009.
This study of Native American societies is adapted for younger readers from Charles C. Mann's bestselling 1491. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the book argues that the people of North and South America lived in enormous cities, raised pyramids hundreds of years before the Egyptians did, engineered corn, and farmed the rainforests.

Martinez-Neal, Juana.Zonia’s Rain Forest.Candlewick Press, 2021.
Zonia’s home is the Amazon rainforest, which is always green and full of life. Every morning, the rainforest calls to Zonia, and every morning, she answers. She visits the sloth family, greets the giant anteater, and runs with the speedy jaguar. But one morning, the rainforest calls to her in a troubled voice. How will Zonia answer? Acclaimed author-illustrator Juana Martinez-Neal explores the wonders of the rainforest with Zonia, an Asháninka girl, in her joyful outdoor adventures.

Mettler, Rene.The Jungle.Moonlight Publishing, 2010.
What is it like to live in a rainforest? Discover the beautiful animals, birds, frogs, insects, flowers, and trees that can be found there.

Munduruku, Daniel, illustrated by Nikolai Popov.Amazonia: Indigenous Tales from Brazil.Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2013.
Mermaids, jaguars, snakes, flying men, witches—extraordinary creatures from the world’s most important wild jungle live on in these tales. The stories are fascinating, and sometimes startling, as protagonists are killed off or transformed into animals or rise up precipitously into the heavens. But they offer a panorama of experience—conflict and death, love and seduction, greed and gluttony, hunting and fishing, cooking and caring for plants —and describe the origins of the natural world.