The #ownvoices hashtag was started in 2015 by YA author Corinne Duyvis. It is used to highlight not only diverse books, but diverse authors writing from an authentic perspective. #ownvoices indicates that the author is writing from a place of personal experience within a marginalized group.

"When someone who looks like me goes missing--wondered 14-year-old Ojibwe teen Brianna Jonnie--why does it not get the same swift response from the police and the media as when a white person goes missing? Brianna put this question to the Chief of Police in a letter, urging them and the media to "do better" when investigating cases of missing Indigenous people. This book brings that letter to life and sheds light on the issue of missing Indigenous people from an Indigenous girl's perspective"--Back cover.

After her rich dad kicks her out for the summer, Apple makes her way to her deceased mom's relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation where she learns about, and comes into conflict with, her Native American culture.

"A . . . new volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, informed by her tribal history and connection to the land"--OCLC.

Teased for his fair coloring, eleven-year-old Jimmy McClean travels with his maternal grandfather, Nyles High Eagle, to learn about his Lakota heritage while visiting places significant in the life of Crazy Horse, the nineteenth-century Lakota leader and warrior, in a tale that weaves the past with the present.

A young shaman named Pitu is stranded on the sea ice after a violent blizzard--without his dog team or any weapons--and soon realizes that he has been carried into the world of the spirits. He meets a fellow shaman who has been trapped in the spirit world for many years who helps Pitu make his way back to the world of the living.

"Free Lunch is the story of Rex Ogle's first semester in sixth grade. Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day in the school lunch line, Rex's is a compelling story of a more profound hunger - that of a child for his parents' love and care."

"This is a story about America during and after Reconstruction, one of history's most pivotal and misunderstood chapters. In a stirring account of emancipation, the struggle for citizenship and national reunion, and the advent of racial segregation, the renowned Harvard scholar delivers a book that is illuminating and timely."-Provided by publisher.

"A fascinating look at the story of bees, the many extraordinary and often unexpected ways they've enriched our lives from prehistoric times to today, and their importance in keeping the food chain thriving."-Amazon.com.

This riveting narrative told from the astronauts' points of view offers a unique approach to the story behind Apollo 11's successful -- though nearly disastrous -- 1969 moon landing. Readers are brought along on the ride of a lifetime, as they relive every step of the mission, including the nail-biting (and relatively unknown) crucial moments when it came close to failure.

"An anthology of letters from young readers to favorite authors about how their books made a significant impact on them describes the feelings of connection, inspiration, and clarity that can be found through reading"--OCLC.