Smith, Cynthia Leitich, ed. Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories. HarperCollins/Heartdrum, 08/2025. 310 [+26]pp. Fiction. Trade $19.99. 978-0-06-331426-9. GRADES 8–Adult. OUTSTANDING.
Sandy June’s Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a space suspended in time, fluid in location, only consistent in providing resource, refuge, or revelry to Indigenous teens who need or want to find it. Leitich Smith has curated a series of independent yet beautifully interwoven short stories and poems about an imaginary hangout providing NDN food and advice from community elders, (“legendary grandparent name tags abound”) where Indigenous communities intersect, and visitors can find anything from comfort over the loss of a departed family member to the courage to perform in public. The stories and poems in the book are not only well-written and compelling, but reflect a careful symbiosis between authors who introduce their own characters while also including those found in other stories and reflecting simultaneously on the range of Indigenous experience and the very individual ways it impacts each person. Read the book and you will wish everyone had access to the kind of humor and community that Sandy June’s creates. Winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book.
Lesley Mandros Bell—Independent