Award-winning author and filmmaker Brian Lee Young (Diné) launches his stunning YA debut with Shards of Silence, an unforgettable coming-of-age story that spans locations and generations. When Navajo teen Derrick receives a scholarship to an elite East Coast boarding school called Sagefield Academy, he knows it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But Sagefield life is totally different from life on the rez, and as academic pressures build, he must learn how to navigate culture shock while asking himself how far he’s willing to go to achieve academic “success.” Meanwhile, his great-grandmother’s experiences as a survivor at a federal Native boarding school come back in painful memories. As Másání Mildred’s health fades, she begs Derrick to leave Sagefield, and he begins to learn where her fears come from. Derrick knows he must use her voice and her story to carry into the future, even as her story changes him, and his family, forever. This book is a multilayered, eye-opening call for community healing, both thought-provoking and full of heart. Young’s middle grade novels (published as Brian Young), Healer of the Water Monster and Heroes of the Water Monster, were American Indian Youth Literature Award winner and honor books respectively, and his work was praised as “thought-provoking and full of heart” in a starred Kirkus review.
