Books
Publications from the Minnesota Humanities Center

About Our Books
MHC has published numerous books in collaboration with community partners for all levels of readers. From anthologies to bilingual children’s books, we offer resources that celebrate and elevate Minnesota’s rich heritage.
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Eden Bart
Anthologies

Edited by Alexs Pate with Coeditors Pamela Fletcher and J. Otis Powell‽
A surprising and compelling anthology that reveals complex realities as described by African American writers in Minnesota over the past century. Co-published with the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Edited by Marian A. Hassan
“Crossroads: An Anthology of Resilience and Hope by Young Somali Writers” is an anthology of writing by youth and young adult Somali Minnesotans published and presented by the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) and our Somali-community partners.

Published in 1991 by the Minnesota Humanities Center in partnership with the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English, Braided Lives is an anthology that brings together vivid stories and poems of Native American, Hispanic American, African American, and Asian American Writers.
Native American Lives Series
The Minnesota Humanities Center is excited to announce an expansion of the Native American Lives Series. In addition to the three original books sharing the life stories of Ella Cara Deloria, Charles Albert Bender, and Peggy Flanagan, an additional nine new stories will be added to the series.

Written by Diane Wilson
Illustrated by Tashia Hart
Ella Cara Deloria loved to listen to her family tell stories in the Dakota language. She recorded many American Indian peoples’ stories and languages and shared them with everyone. She helped protect her people’s language for future generations. She also wrote stories of her own.
About the Author
Diane Wilson is a Dakota author, educator, and bog steward. Her novel, The Seed Keeper (2021) and her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past (2006), won the Minnesota Book Awards in 2022 and 2007. She has also published a nonfiction book, Beloved Child; and co-authored a picture book—Where We Come From. Her essays have appeared in anthologies including: Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations (2021); We Are Meant to Rise (2021); and A Good Time for the Truth (2016). She is the former Executive Director for Dream of Wild Health and the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance. In addition to this book, she authored the first in the series, Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector. Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendant, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation.
About the Illustrator
Tashia Hart is an author and illustrator; her works include Native Love Jams (2023), The GoodberryCookbook: Harvesting and Cooking Wild Rice and Other Wild Foods (2021), Gidjie and the Wolves (2020) and Girl Unreserved (2015). She was assistant illustrator for Gaa-pi-izhiwebak (2021) and illustrator for Gidjie and the Wolves (2020). Her short works include recipes, essays, poetry, and short stories for various publications. In addition to this title, she has also illustrated several of the books in this series. She is a citizen of the Red Lake Nation and resides in Duluth, MN.

Written by Kade Ferris
Illustrated by Tashia Hart
Charles Albert Bender invented the slider. He was a World Series-winning pitcher and the first Minnesotan inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He grew up poor on a farm where he worked in the fields. He lived far away from his home and family while attending an Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania. Charles Albert Bender worked hard all his life and defined his success by the amount of effort he put into something.
About the Author
Bio coming soon!
About the Illustrator
Tashia Hart is an author and illustrator; her works include Native Love Jams (2023), The GoodberryCookbook: Harvesting and Cooking Wild Rice and Other Wild Foods (2021), Gidjie and the Wolves (2020) and Girl Unreserved (2015). She was assistant illustrator for Gaa-pi-izhiwebak (2021) and illustrator for Gidjie and the Wolves (2020). Her short works include recipes, essays, poetry, and short stories for various publications. In addition to this title, she has also illustrated several of the books in this series. She is a citizen of the Red Lake Nation and resides in Duluth, MN.

Written by Jessica Engelking
Illustrated by Tashia Hart
Peggy Flanagan is the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. This is the second highest office in the state. She is the first Native woman to hold such a high elected statewide office in the United States. Peggy is working hard to make life better for all Minnesotans.
About the Author
Bio coming soon!
About the Illustrator
Tashia Hart is an author and illustrator; her works include Native Love Jams (2023), The GoodberryCookbook: Harvesting and Cooking Wild Rice and Other Wild Foods (2021), Gidjie and the Wolves (2020) and Girl Unreserved (2015). She was assistant illustrator for Gaa-pi-izhiwebak (2021) and illustrator for Gidjie and the Wolves (2020). Her short works include recipes, essays, poetry, and short stories for various publications. In addition to this title, she has also illustrated several of the books in this series. She is a citizen of the Red Lake Nation and resides in Duluth, MN.

Written by Diane Wilson
Illustrated by Cole Redhorse Taylor
About the Author
Diane Wilson is a Dakota author, educator, and bog steward. Her novel, The Seed Keeper (2021) and her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past (2006), won the Minnesota Book Awards in 2022 and 2007. She has also published a nonfiction book, Beloved Child; and co-authored a picture book—Where We Come From. Her essays have appeared in anthologies including: Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations (2021); We Are Meant to Rise (2021); and A Good Time for the Truth (2016). She is the former Executive Director for Dream of Wild Health and the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance. In addition to this book, she authored the first in the series, Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector. Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendant, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation.
About the Illustrator
Cole Redhorse Taylor is a Mdewakanton Dakota , enrolled with the Prairie Island Indian Community. He lives and works on his reservation community located within the traditional boundaries of Dakota homelands in Minnesota. He is a multidisciplinary artist, with a BFA in Fine Arts Studio with an emphasis in Drawing and Painting, from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. His works include traditional forms of drawing, painting, beadwork, quillwork, and textile work in traditional regalia. He works towards celebrating his people as thriving conduits of his ancestor’s legacies and to solidify their presence.

Written by Staci Lola Drouillard
Illustrated by Tashia Hart
Coming January 2026!
About the Author
Staci Lola Drouillard is a Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe direct descendant. She lives and works in her hometown of Kitchibitobig—Grand Marais, on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her first book Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe (UMP, 2019) won the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History, the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award. Her second book Seven Aunts (UMP, 2022) won the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative nonfiction, the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award and was a “Minnesota Reads” selection at the Library of Congress National Book Festival. A Family Tree, is her first children’s book and was illustrated by Kate Gardiner (Harper Collins, 2024). Staci is an award-winning radio producer for WTIP North Shore Community Radio and authors the monthly column Nibi Chronicles for Great Lakes Now, a branch of Detroit Public Media.
About the Illustrator
Tashia Hart is an author and illustrator; her works include Native Love Jams (2023), The GoodberryCookbook: Harvesting and Cooking Wild Rice and Other Wild Foods (2021), Gidjie and the Wolves (2020) and Girl Unreserved (2015). She was assistant illustrator for Gaa-pi-izhiwebak (2021) and illustrator for Gidjie and the Wolves (2020). Her short works include recipes, essays, poetry, and short stories for various publications. In addition to this title, she has also illustrated several of the books in this series. She is a citizen of the Red Lake Nation and resides in Duluth, MN.

Written by Glen Wasicuna
Illustrated by Awaniigiizhik Bruce
Coming January 2026!
About the Author
Bio coming soon!
About the Illustrator
Awanigiizhik Bruce (Mikinaak-Wajiw Anishinaabe, Nehiyaw, Michif) is a Two-Spirit diverse-media artist based on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. Their artistic practice traverses traditional and ceremonial Nehiyaw-pwat forms, mixed media, and multimedia work. Their primary mediums include ledger art, parfleche, quillwork, beadworking, painting, jewelry-making, and computer-coded LED art. Awanigiizhik brings practices from ancestral traditional revitalization to the exploration of Indigenous futurism. They spend much of the year completing site-specific and collaborative projects around the country, like murals in Duluth, MN and Belcourt, ND.

Written by Hema Patel
Illustrated by Awaniigiizhik Bruce
Coming January 2026!
About the Author
Hema Liesel Erdrich Patel is a writer, artist, dog lover, and lifelong student. She comes from a beautiful blend of cultures – on her mother’s side, mixed German and Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, and on her father’s side, Gujarati Indian. She was raised in both Belcourt, ND and Sisseton, SD, and has called Minneapolis, Minnesota home for most of her years. She is a recent graduate from Yale University with a BA in the History of Science, Health and Medicine and an Education Studies Certificate. Her most recent artistic adventure consisted of a three month bharatanatyam intensive in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Outside of her writing, she is pursuing a path towards medicine as a future pediatrician!
About the Illustrator
Awanigiizhik Bruce (Mikinaak-Wajiw Anishinaabe, Nehiyaw, Michif) is a Two-Spirit diverse-media artist based on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. Their artistic practice traverses traditional and ceremonial Nehiyaw-pwat forms, mixed media, and multimedia work. Their primary mediums include ledger art, parfleche, quillwork, beadworking, painting, jewelry-making, and computer-coded LED art. Awanigiizhik brings practices from ancestral traditional revitalization to the exploration of Indigenous futurism. They spend much of the year completing site-specific and collaborative projects around the country, like murals in Duluth, MN and Belcourt, ND.

Written by Pauline Danforth
Illustrated by Tashia Hart
Coming January 2026!
About the Author
Pauline Brunette Danforth, spent her early years living with her grandmother in the Pine Point community on the White Earth Reservation where she received her Ojibwe name Kewetah-benais-equay, translating to Thunderbird Flying in a Circle. Her family moved to the Cities in the 1950s for economic reasons. She graduated from Bemidji State University with a degree in Mass Communications. She then edited the Leech Lake Reservation tribal newspaper before investigating Ojibwe land claims and doing probate research for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She returned to the Cities to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota earning a Ph.D. in American Studies.
Over the span of her decades-long higher education career, she advised and taught at both the University of Minnesota and Metropolitan State University while serving on the boards of various American Indian non-profit organizations. In addition to publishing creative non-fiction, memoir and poetry, she has published historical articles about the Minneapolis urban Indian community.
She is a devoted traveler having visited many U.S. states and Canadian provinces plus Mexico, Guatemala, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland and several other European countries. Now retired, she travels, meets regularly with her writing group while also teaching Native Studies at Metropolitan State University.
About the Illustrator
Tashia Hart is an author and illustrator; her works include Native Love Jams (2023), The GoodberryCookbook: Harvesting and Cooking Wild Rice and Other Wild Foods (2021), Gidjie and the Wolves (2020) and Girl Unreserved (2015). She was assistant illustrator for Gaa-pi-izhiwebak (2021) and illustrator for Gidjie and the Wolves (2020). Her short works include recipes, essays, poetry, and short stories for various publications. In addition to this title, she has also illustrated several of the books in this series. She is a citizen of the Red Lake Nation and resides in Duluth, MN.

Check back for updates on titles, authors, and illustrators of books being published in August 2026!
Reading Together Book Project
The Reading Together Book Project addresses the lack of children’s books that speak to the experience of being an Asian Pacific Islander (API) child and supports the development of English literacy skills.

Written by Diane Tran
Illustrated by Alex Patrick Shimkus
The lunar new year is here, and Linh wants to help her mom prepare for the big celebration. There is much to do around the house before the family reunion dinner. Try as she might to help her mom with the traditional customs that bring good luck in the new year, Linh keeps making mistakes.

Written by Mai Kou Xiong
Illustrated by Vang Lee
Phengxue was always too busy with soccer and friends to take an interest in the ancient Hmong qeej (“keng”), until his two best friends encounter the instrument during a visit. Their curiosity brings them to Grandfather, whose wisdom teaches the three boys the importance of the qeej during Hmong funerals. Not only does this instrument play beautiful melodies, it also guides a loved one’s soul back to the land of the ancestors. Phengxue’s heart is pulled by its soft music, as if the qeej is speaking to him, nudging him to learn this special instrument.

Written by Stephen Wright
Illustrated by Ilhwa Gloria Kim
Ian loves to gaze at the night sky and longs to discover the mystery of his birth story and adoption from the Philippines. Who is his birth mother, and why did she leave him at an orphanage when Ian was a newborn?
Ian discovers that the stars may contain answers that will point him home so that he can take his place among the stars.

Written by Chay Douangphouxay
Illustrated by Alex Kuno
Before a Lao child is born, the child’s parents spend endless nights trying to think of the perfect name. Once the name is carefully and lovingly chosen, the child must strive to live up to that name. If the child is successful, it will bring great honor and joy to the family. But if the child fails, it can bring much sadness and misfortune.
Each of the characters in Tawan: The Sun Girl has been given a special and meaningful name. Their names were given as a guide to help them become better people. But when the true test of life comes knocking on their door, will Tawan, Din, Nom, and Prince Jaiboun choose to live up to their names?

By May Lee Yang
Illustrated by Anne Sawyer-Aitch
On the first day of summer break, twin brothers, Tou Bee and Tou Cher are bummed when their mom takes away their video games. She makes the crazy suggestion that they use their imaginations instead! Determined to find their video games, the boys go on a quest that includes ninjas, dungeons, wild dogs, and even a dragon!

By Ka Vang
Illustrated by Aimee Hagerty Johnson
2012 Midwest Book Award Finalist for Children’s Fiction
Quiet and shy Shoua is heart-broken when she is not allowed to go on a camping trip with her grandfather, father, and two brothers, simply because she is a girl. When Shoua’s mother has a special dream about a falling star in the forest her grandfather mysteriously allows Shoua to come along and camp in the north Minnesota woods. While camping a star falls and a wounded dragon is found. Shoua becomes determined to save the dragon in order to prove her place in the family. In the process, she discovers her own voice and magical power!
Somali Bilingual Book Project
The Somali Bilingual Book Project provides authentic resources that promote and preserve heritage languages and increase English literacy skills of refugee and immigrant families through four traditional Somali folktales in both English and Somali.

Retold by Said Salah Ahmed
Illustrated by Kelly Dupre
This traditional Somali folktale tells an animal fable about working together toward a common good. The animals all work together to kill a camel, but then the lion comes and demands that they give him a share. Although he did none of the work, he ends up with most of the camel, prompting the other animals to say, “The lion’s share is not fair.”

Retold by Marian A. Hassan
Illustrated by Betsy Bowen
In this hair-raising cautionary tale from Somalia, the Hargega Valley is plagued by the monstrous Dhegdheer, a witch who gobbles up anyone unlucky enough to cross her path. A widow and her young son try to escape her. Will they be Dhegdheer’s next meal or will their virtue save them and help bring an end to Dhegdheer’s reign of terror?

Retold by Kathleen Moriarty
Illustrated by Amin Amir
When a wise Somali leader asks the men in his province to bring him the part of a sheep that best symbolizes what can divide men or unite them as one, most present him with prime cuts of meat. But one very poor man’s daughter has a different idea. In this clever folktale, a father reluctantly follows his daughter’s advice and has astonishing results.

Retold by Kelly Dupree
Illustrated by Amin Amir
When a wise Somali leader asks the men in his province to bring him the part of a sheep that best symbolizes what can divide men or unite them as one, most present him with prime cuts of meat. But one very poor man’s daughter has a different idea. In this clever folktale, a father reluctantly follows his daughter’s advice and has astonishing results.