River Readers

What happens when you put six special kids in a room, once a week, without a teacher to monitor their conversation? That is the premise of this beautiful book, Harbor Me by Jaqueline Woodson. The six students call the room the ARTT (A Room to Talk) and it becomes their safe space to talk about all that is going on in their lives. This book covers alcoholic parents, incarceration, immigration, racism and many other important topics, as they affect the lives of these twelve year olds.

Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In Rez Life, his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist’s storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present.

Married for just over a year, Roy and Celestial are still navigating their new dynamic as husband and wife. Then their lives are forever altered when they travel to Roy's small Louisiana hometown for a visit, and Roy is falsely accused of a harrowing crime and sentenced to 12 years in prison. The strain on their relationship is intense during Roy's incarceration, especially once Celestial's career takes off while he struggles with loss and feelings of abandonment. Nearly halfway through Roy's sentence, his conviction is vacated.