Overview
In his first YA novel, award-winning author Brian Lee Young (Diné) bridges the generational divide between a Navajo teen at an elite prep school and his great-grandmother’s experience at a federal boarding school for Indigenous students. The book is an eye-opening call for community healing and a profound coming-of-age story. Even if it hurts to leave behind his friends and family in Navajo, New Mexico—especially his great-grandmother, Mildred—Derrick knows his scholarship to an elite East Coast boarding school is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Sagefield Academy is totally different from life on the rez: His new classmates vacation in Europe and take study drugs. Derrick wants to stick to caffeine, but handling sports, school, and a twenty-page term paper, all while dodging comments about his hair and heritage, feels straight-up impossible. Back home, Másání Mildred’s health is fading quickly. On the phone, she begs Derrick to leave Sagefield. When he realizes her fear comes from her time in federal Native boarding schools, he knows he’s finally found the term paper theme he believes in: carrying her voice into the future. Derrick will need to shatter a steadfast generational silence to untangle his great-grandmother’s memories--though her story might change him, and his family, forever.
Full Product Details
Author: Brian Lee Young
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Imprint: HarperCollins
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 21.00cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9780063229082
ISBN 10: 0063229080
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 05 May 2026
Recommended Age: From 13 years
Audience:
Children/juvenile
,
Children / Juvenile
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Availability: Not yet available
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Reviews
""A superlative, culturally relevant coming-of-age story."" - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ""Young, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, draws on personal experience to craft a gripping story about an Indigenous teenager's grappling with exciting and frightening new experiences upon leaving his childhood home. An illuminating author's note underscores the novel's cultural and historical grounding, which entrenches readers in a fully fleshed-out world enriched by extensive use of Navajo language and cultural specificity."" - Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
""A superlative, culturally relevant coming-of-age story."" - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Author Information
Author and filmmaker Brian Lee Young is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. He grew up on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Brian earned his BA in film studies at Yale University and his MFA in creative writing at Columbia University. His debut middle grade novels, Healer of the Water Monster and Heroes of the Water Monster, were American Indian Youth Literature Award winner and honor books respectively. Brian currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
