This Indian Kid

Debut author Chuculate, who is Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee, delivers a plainspoken memoir that chronicles critical moments during his childhood in Oklahoma in the 1970s and ’80s. Because of his parents’ divorce early in his life, Chuculate remembers spending most of his time being “shuttled between my mom and her mother.” Granny and Grandpa’s home was the only constant as he cycled through 14 schools in nine years and experienced much uncertainty throughout his mother’s rocky second marriage. His participation on his local baseball team provided focus and community, particularly with other kids, and fishing with his friends and Grandpa helped him feel connected to his Native roots. Via anecdotal, slice-of-life vignettes peppered with sensorial references to period TV shows, music, and clothing, the author develops a keen sense of time and place that aids in grounding the free-flowing narrative. While Chuculate’s experiences with racism are present throughout, the author establishes in a concluding q&a that this is not a memoir of trauma, but a transformative interpretation of the life of an ordinary boy in America endeavoring to become “known for grander things.” Ages 12–up. Agent: Alex Glass, Glass Literary Management. (Sept.)