-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
In his first YA novel, award-winning author Brian Lee Young (Diné) bridges the generational divide between a Navajo teen at an elite prep school and his great-grandmother's experience at a federal boarding school for Indigenous students. The book is an eye-opening call for community healing and a profound coming-of-age story.
Even if it hurts to leave behind his friends and family in Navajo, New Mexico—especially his great-grandmother, Mildred—Derrick knows his scholarship to an elite East Coast boarding school is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Sagefield Academy is totally different from life on the rez: His new classmates vacation in Europe and take study drugs. Derrick wants to stick to caffeine, but handling sports, school, and a twenty-page term paper, all while dodging comments about his hair and heritage, feels straight-up impossible.
Back home, Másání Mildred's health is fading quickly. On the phone, she begs Derrick to leave Sagefield. When he realizes her fear comes from her time in federal Native boarding schools, he knows he's finally found the term paper theme he believes in: carrying her voice into the future.
Derrick will need to shatter a steadfast generational silence to untangle his great-grandmother's memories—though her story might change him, and his family, forever.
"A superlative, culturally relevant coming-of-age story." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Young, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, draws on personal experience to craft a gripping story about an Indigenous teenager's grappling with exciting and frightening new experiences upon leaving his childhood home. An illuminating author's note underscores the novel's cultural and historical grounding, which entrenches readers in a fully fleshed-out world enriched by extensive use of Navajo language and cultural specificity." —Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"A phenomenal addition to young adult collections, offering a beautiful and passionate look into the resilience of the Navajo Nation." —School Library Journal (starred review)
"Initially having the trappings of a classic sports coming-of-age tale, the story deftly shifts to Derrick's internal journey of discovery. [Young] casts an important spotlight on a little-known aspect of Native American history, one that the reader can deeply feel through Derrick's quest for the truth." —Booklist
This information about Shards of Silence was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Author and filmmaker, Brian Young is a graduate of both Yale University with a Bachelor's in Film Studies and Columbia University with a Master's in Creative Writing Fiction. An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, he grew up on the Navajo Reservation but now currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. As an undergraduate, Brian won a fellowship with the prestigious Sundance Ford Foundation with one of his feature length scripts. He has worked on several short films including Tsídii Nááts'íílid (Sid-dee Naw-see-lid) – Rainbow Bird and A Conversation on Race with Native Americans for the short documentary series produced by the New York Times. He was a participant of the 6th Annual Native American TV Writer's Lab with the Native American Media Alliance, where he learned to write television scripts. He has published two middle grade novels, Healer of the Water Monster and Heroes of the Water Monster, as well as contributed short stories to Ancestor Approved and A Little Bit Super. In addition to writing for middle grade, Brian is working on several Young Adult and Adult fiction books and has worked as a cultural consultant on Jamie Lee Curtis and Russell Goldman's graphic novel Mother Nature.
If you liked Shards of Silence, try these:
by Aaron John. Curtis
Published 2026
A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man's reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.
by Jacqueline Woodson
Published 2025
Winner: BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023
National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson brings readers a powerful story that delves deeply into life's burning questions about time and memory and what we take with us into the future.
by Margaret Verble
Published 2024
A gripping, gut-punch of a novel about a Cherokee child removed from her family and sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s—an ambitious, eye-opening reckoning of history and small-town prejudices from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble.
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
