Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature brought to you by the very creative people over at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s topic was to come up with a list of things loosely related to Thanksgiving (like ten authors or books we’re grateful for), but I wanted to do something a little bit different.

Thanksgiving is one of my absolute favorite holidays. It probably is my favorite holiday (with Hanukkah being a close second), but it’s not a holiday that’s free of conflict or tension.

You can’t celebrate the pilgrims successful harvest without thinking about the men and women who helped them learn the native plants and show them how to grow their food. And in remembering them, you can’t but think how horribly the pilgrims and their descendants treated these people they should have shown gratitude and respect.

So for me, Thanksgiving is a time for family and tradition, yes, but it’s also a time of remembrance and gratitude for the diverse peoples who suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of white settlers. And I can’t think of a better way to do this then by reading and celebrating Native American authors and culture.

And without further ado, here’s a list of Native American authors on my TBR list. Hopefully you’ll find an author on here who inspires you:

• Sherman Alexie: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• Louise Erdrich: The Birchbark House series, Tracks
• Joy Harjo: The Good Luck Cat, For a Girl Becoming
• Cynthia Leitich Smith: Feral series, Tantalize series
• Ella Cara Deloria: Waterlily
• Richard Van Camp:  The Lesser Blessed
• Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony
• Joseph Bruchac: Code Talker
• N. Scott Momaday: House Made of Dawn

Did I miss any of  your favorite Native American authors? What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?