Thousands of new books, many by Indigenous writers, are landing in the hands of kids across Southeast Alaska this month. A series of book drops are the result of a partnership between the region’s largest tribal government and a Native-led nonprofit with roots in the Navajo and Hopi nations.
During Thursday’s book distributions at Kax̱dig̱oowu Héen Elementary in Juneau, kids swarmed around tables piled with books.
Audri Ia, a third grader who says she loves reading, picked up a book about Ada Lovelace, a mathematician.
“I liked this one because I read the back of it and I got really interested in it, and I like science books,” she said, adding that she wants to be a scientist.
“I like to, like, blow stuff up at my house, but my mom always says no,” she added.
Ia wasn’t the only one who had a stack of books in her arms. Throughout the common area, dozens of kids scurried around with their own finds. Some books are for kids as young as five or six years old, and some targeted older readers. The ones for elementary-aged kids were going fast.
The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska hosted the book drop. Special Projects Manager Tristan Douville helped orchestrate the event, and he surveyed the pandemonium with visible emotion.
“Oh my gosh. It’s so incredible. It’s like amazing. Mind blowing. Couldn’t be more exciting,” he said. “I’m like, ‘this is crazy.’”
Months ago, he reached out to NDN Girls Book Club — a nonprofit that brings books to Indigenous communities — to float the idea of book drops in Southeast Alaska. He said he knows firsthand that not all Alaska students have ready access to fun reading material.
“I grew up in a rural community. I grew up on Prince of Wales Island, in Craig and Klawock, and there were times when it wasn’t super accessible to even get to the library,” Douville said.
That kind of access is the point for Kinsale Drake, the founder of NDN Girls Book Club. She said she wishes there were book drops like this when she was growing up.
Drake is a poet, and said she thinks she may have found her passion earlier if she had more exposure to Native writers. She said she was motivated to start the book club as a way for her to work against a publishing ecosystem that can exclude certain readers or communities.
“Publishers care about money. They don’t care about representation unless it’s making them money,” Drake said. “And so I think, you know, the anger and the sadness, I think, of dealing with that as somebody who wants every Native kid to be able to have books with characters that look like them, that make them feel confident, that make them feel happy and seen and loved.”
Her organization started delivering books throughout the Navajo and Hopi Nations in a pink van in 2023. Since then, NDN Girls Book Club has traveled across the United States with books in tow.
Drake says events like these show publishers that there is a market for stories about and for Indigenous youth.
“When we come out here and we have a room full of kids who are, like, so excited to have books like this, it’s like, you know, we’re showing them in their face. This is representation. This is why it’s important. And you’re not going to tell us that it’s not important,” she said.
The book tour will make it to villages in Southeast, too. Next, books will land in Yakutat, Klukwan and Hydaburg.