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Yeehaw or Nah?

Howdy! The Western genre is a type of fiction that captures the spirit and the struggle of American West. They are set between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the last frontier in 1890. But westerns are more than just a lone cowboy and his horse riding off into the sunset. This book list goes beyond the definition of a western and adds a modern twist to their themes, settings or characters.

Canton Public Library

12 items

  • When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren's missing sister, Mara thinks she'll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation. Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is…
    Book[New York] : Heartdrum, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2024 — YA FICTION COBELL
  • Juniper, Wyoming, high school student Ash is still reeling from his mother’s death and ostracization by his friends when his father signs him up to join the crew for a college production of Oklahoma! Ash is slowly drawn out of his shell by…
    BookNew York : Calkins Creek, an imprint of Astra Books for Your Readers, [2024] — YA FICTION STOKES
  • Ever since the dust storms arrived and turned her world upside down, ambitious Stella Fischer spends her mornings hiding moonshine in laundry stacks for delivery before returning home to help her sisters—Lavinia and Mattie—run their family…
    BookFort Collins, Colorado : CamCat Books, [2024] — YA FICTION LYNN
  • Cherokee teen Billy Buckhorn had no idea what was in store for him when Osage teen Lisa Lookout and her family showed up on his doorstep. A tribal prophecy, carried by their family for a thousand years, indicates Billy is the long-awaited…
    BookSummertown, Tennessee : 7th Generation, [2024] — YA FICTION ROBINSON
  • Riley Thomas is feeling stuck. She’s moved from California to Nebraska, she’s on a weeklong Oregon Trail family bonding excursion and her luggage is lost. There’s no one her age on the trip except a tall, dark and irksome cowboy who…
    BookNew York : Delacorte Romance, [2024] — YA FICTION EMMEL
  • Alfred Swallow and his friends Orson and Junior are forced to leave their families and homes to attend a residential mission school. The students' beautiful long hair is cut, and they are forbidden to speak their native language. Even the…
    BookSummertown, Tennessee : 7th Generation, [2024] — YA FICTION BEARTRACKALGEO
  • When a violent feud between two powerful men comes to a head in the small settlement of Bladestay, Colorado, cunning resident Theo Creed must use her wits to stay alive. Disguising herself as a young boy, Theo bluffs her way into the inner…
    BookFt. Collins, Colorado : CamCat Books, 2023 — YA FICTION JOHNSON
  • Fifteen-year-old Tam Ling Fan disguises herself as her twin brother, journeys from her village in China to California and works as a laborer on the Transcontinental Railroad. Though she faces danger on multiple fronts, it's the only way…
    BookMinneapolis : Carolrhoda Lab, [2022] — YA FICTION YEE
  • Sydney never thought she would be the new girl at school, but when she moves to Minneapolis, everything changes. At her old school on the reservation, almost all the kids were Indigenous, and she was known as a tough bully. Now, at her new…
    BookSummertown, Tennessee : 7th Generation, [2021] — YA FICTION SIGAFUS
  • When Bugz, who is caught between the worlds of life on the Rez and the virtual world, meets Feng, they form an instant bond as outsiders and gamers and must both grapple with the impact of family challenges and community trauma.
    Book[Toronto, Ontario] : Penguin Teen, 2021 — YA FICTION KINEW
  • All Samantha wanted was to move back to New York and pursue her music, which was difficult enough being a Chinese girl in Missouri, 1849. Then her fate takes a turn for the worse after a tragic accident leaves her with nothing and she…
    BookNew York, NY : G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), [2015] — YA FICTION LEE
  • Junior is a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other…
    BookNew York : Little, Brown and Company, c2007 — YA FICTION ALEXIE