mother

Adult/High School–National Book Award finalist RedCherries (Northern Cheyenne) debuts as both writer and narrator, her softly youthful voice resonating with underlying emotion and resolute tenacity. Presented in multiple formats in both verse and prose, a narrative emerges about a young Native woman longing for a lost mother, from whom she was stolen. Short, immersive fragments, lines, paragraphs puzzle together the unnamed narrator’s portrait of splintered family and fractured identity. “From the pieces of memory I have left I/ have made your stories whole,” she writes. She’s raised by non-Native parents—“my family/ here is strong too and I love my mom/ and dad more than anyone else in the/ world.” A reunited brother and sister help her reconnect to their origins, even as she questions, “mother,/ where is the Indian in me?”