Sidanela — David Long

The Pee Dees were a tribe of roughly 500 Native Americans living around 1250 AD in Town Creek-what is now the Central Piedmont area of North Carolina. Sidanela (which translates as family) chronicles a suspenseful season in the lives of the tribe as seventeen-year-old Red Willow, a feisty tomboy, navigates an agonizing choice. While following her fifteen-year-old brother, Running Wolf, into the woods to spy on his hunt, she witnesses him committing murder and must decide whether to turn him in at an annual confession event-where he'll be put to death by a relative of his victim-or live with a secret that violates the values her late father taught her. This harrowing story features spellbinding ceremonies, tender moments of love and loss, and prophetic dreams, set against a tribe's struggles to survive hostile neighbors, famine, and a sociopathic leader who will kill anyone to gain power. Throughout this thoroughly researched historical coming of age novel, the courageous spirits of Red Willow and Running Wolf lead the way out of crisis and towards a more hopeful future.