We Still Belong -- Christine Day, Hardcover

A thoughtful and heartfelt middle grade novel by American Indian Youth Literature Honor-winning author Christine Day (Upper Skagit), about a girl whose hopeful plans for Indigenous Peoples' Day (and plans to ask her crush to the school dance) go all wrong--until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family and community at an intertribal powwow.

Wesley is proud of the poem she wrote for Indigenous Peoples' Day--but the reaction from a teacher makes her wonder if expressing herself is important enough. And due to the specific tribal laws of her family's Nation, Wesley is unable to enroll in the Upper Skagit tribe and is left feeling "not Native enough." Through the course of the novel, with the help of her family and friends, she comes to embrace her own place within the Native community.

Christine Day's debut, I Can Make This Promise, was an American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Honor Book, was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus, School Library Journal, the Chicago Public Library, and NPR, and was also picked as a Charlotte Huck Honor Book. Her sophomore novel, The Sea in Winter, was an American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Honor Book, as well as named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus and School Library Journal.

We Still Belong is an accessible, enjoyable, and important novel from an author who always delivers.

Author: Christine Day
Publisher: Heartdrum
Published: 08/01/2023
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.69lbs
Size: 8.51h x 5.89w x 0.88d
ISBN: 9780063064560
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.3
Point Value: 6
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 519663 / We Still Belong


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2023
School Library Journal 07/01/2023 pg. 69
Publishers Weekly 07/03/2023
Horn Book Magazine 07/01/2023 pg. 107