Storykeeper (Nine-Rivers Valley Book 1) by Daniel A. Smith

The struggles of a culture to survive and the importance storytelling has always played in that effort frames this “vivid epic” (Kirkus Reviews) based on three 16th century journals written during the expedition of Spanish conquistadors into North America. However, the novel is told from the perspective of the ancient people of the Mississippi River Valley, who lived and survived America’s deadliest invasion. Decades of sad, long winters pass, Manaha empowered by a dream and against the taboos of her small tribe of survivors, demands that the children hear the truth about their abandoned homelands, the arrival of the Son-of-the-Sun and Great Dying that followed.