“Apple” can reference something precious and much loved: apple of one’s eye. “Apple” is also a derogatory term for Native people: red on the outside, white on the inside. Apple, 12, never knew her Ojibwe/Michif mom, who grew up on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Indian Reservation in North Dakota but died in a car accident while pregnant. Apple has been raised by her white dad and her stepmom. Now she’s spending the summer on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. For the first time she is learning about her mom, whom her dad doesn’t talk about, and her heritage, and meeting members of her extended family of blood and community. A story that hits its stride at the point Apple arrives on the reservation features an abundance of warmth and humor, including Native humor that Apple is being exposed to for the first time, and wonderfully complex, nuanced characters. A subplot involving a man who was in love with Apple’s mom when they were teens is less compelling, as is the framing story with her dad, stepmom and little brother, but it all comes together as Apple begins to see herself not as someone in the middle or caught between, but as a girl connected to many good people and things across all aspects of her life. (Ages 9–13)

Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a prairie nigger-a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descendance-not that she really even knows how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesn't accept her either. After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain (North Dakota) Indian Reservation for the first time. It should have been easy, except that she makes all kinds of mistakes as she deals with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while trying to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man, Karl, who has a violent, granite-sized chip on his shoulder because he loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man. As Apple meets her Indian relatives this summer, she finds that she just may have found a place to belong. One by one, each character-ranging from age five to eighty-five-teaches her, through wit and wisdom, what it means to be a Native person, but also to be a human being while finding her place in the world. Apple shatters Indian stereotypes and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color.