Traci Sorell books

Anthologies

Children’s Reading Order

Picture Reading Order

Traci Sorell is a Cherokee Nation citizen, former federal Indigenous law attorney, and first-generation college graduate who writes children’s books about Native American experiences. She started writing after noticing that when her son was in preschool, almost no children’s picture books told contemporary Native stories, and none were specifically about Cherokee people.

Her debut picture book, We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga (2018), guides readers through the seasons in a Cherokee community, incorporating Cherokee vocabulary and syllabary. Since then she has published a steady stream of picture books and longer works for young readers. Classified (2021) tells the true story of Mary Golda Ross, a Cherokee woman who became the first female engineer at Lockheed and worked in the classified Skunk Works division. Indian No More (2019), co-written with Charlene Willing McManis, is a middle grade novel based on McManis’s family’s real experiences after their tribe was terminated by the federal government in the 1950s.

Sorell’s books have earned eight American Indian Library Association awards, plus recognition from the American Library Association, the International Literacy Association, and other organizations. Several of her titles have been among books challenged or banned in school districts, which she has addressed directly through her contribution to the anthology Banned Together (2025). She lives in northeastern Oklahoma and continues to write stories rooted in Cherokee community and culture.