Very readable, briskly-paced, and interestingly identity focused in a way that I haven’t really seen before. I was a little confused from a Jewish perspective about the religious makeup of the school/local community, there was a bit of a retro tone to the narrative and illustrations despite it seemingly having a modern setting, and I’d have liked some more specifics or clarity about the family’s past, but overall a nice choice for graphic novel readers looking for more character- and culture-centric stories.

Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen is a wonderful middle grade graphic novel with a main character who learns to identify and embrace what it means to belong to "two tribes"!

Wow! What a story and Kudos to Emily Bowen Cohen! Many may not be aware of the Ten Lost Tribe of Israel, so it was incredible how Bowen Cohen was able to tell this coming of age story incorporating Native American Tribes and those of the Jewish tradition. More incredible is how she tells this story as many teenagers, finding oneself with divorced parents. This is an incredible book! Congrats to Bowen Cohen!

***I received a free ARC of this e-book from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.***

In Emily Bowen Cohen’s Two Tribes, twelve year old Mia lives in California with her Jewish mom and step-dad while her Muscogee dad and family live in Oklahoma. After her Bat Mitzvah, Mia is feeling like the only part of her that’s acknowledged is the Jewish part of her. But Mia is also Muscogee, and yearns to learn more about her Native heritage. To do so, she sneaks away to visit her dad in Oklahoma. While there, she learns about clans, traditional stories, Indian boarding schools, fry bread, sofke, and more. She learns to find her own way to be, loving and participating in both her Jewish faith and her Muscogee heritage.

This graphic novel had me randomly squealing in excitement, just utterly delighted by so many things. I was thrilled by the Native representation and validated by seeing aspects of my own Cherokee and Oklahoma upbringing reflected in these pages. From the joy of ribbon skirts and seeing my childhood town on the page to the hard memories of having to re-enact the Oklahoma land run, this graphic novel is a home run of a read.

As someone from there, it was delightful to see Oklahoma represented in a positive way. Of course every place has its negatives, but it was lovely to see Oklahoma through Mia’s eyes. As Mia experienced powwow, fry bread, and ribbon skirts, I felt like I was visiting home.

This beautiful story balances Mia’s joy in learning about her culture with the difficult aspects of history, too. From Indian boarding schools in the Great Depression to land run “games” in the 90s that Mia’s dad (and myself) endured, the balance of hard history with joyful tradition is perfectly done.

Mia’s families celebrate their traditions with food. At home in California, Mia, her mom, and her step-dad Roger have Shabbat dinner each week. Mia and her mom make the challah together. While in Oklahoma, Mia learns about a lot of Mvskoke foods, like sofke, wild onions and eggs, fry bread, grape dumplings, and Indian tacos. At school, Mia and her best friend Chloe trade lunches. Mia connects to her family and her cultures through togetherness and traditional and nontraditional foods. Mia’s Oklahoma family is considerate of her eating kosher while introducing her to tradish Native foods, like making sure her Indian taco is meatless. This is just one of the ways Cohen shows how Mia’s Oklahoma family is accepting of all of her.

I could gush about this book all day long, from the thoughtful panels and art to the relatable storyline to the parts that particularly resonate with me because of my own background. As a citizen of Cherokee Nation raising Cherokee kids outside of our reservation, it means so much to me to see books featuring tribal members staying connected or reconnecting while living far away. Kids need to see what life is like for today’s Native kids in every beautiful and wondrous aspect, and in the hard parts, too.

Two Tribes will be available August 15, 2023.

If buying every book you want isn’t in your budget, you can also suggest titles to your local library! This graphic novel would make an excellent addition to any home or public library.

Thank you to the author, HarperCollins Children’s, Heartdrum, and NetGalley for an e-ARC so that I could share my honest opinions.

This was a fantastic graphic novel all about Mia, who is Jewish and Native American. Her mom has remarried to a Jewish man named Roger and now Mia and her mother are practicing Judaism. Mia is still very interested in her father's side of her heritage, the Muskogee Tribe, and decides to fly to Oklahoma to visit her father's family without telling her mother or stepfather. Things go great for the first couple of days, but then Mia's mom finds out that she's flown halfway across the country without telling her. She is naturally pretty mad about that and flies out to take Mia back home. Mia tries to explain that she wants to connect with her father's side of her heritage but because of how she went about visiting them she is grounded. After studying after school with her rabbi though, she comes to understand that she needs to be honest with both sides of her family in order to move forward.

This was a really great graphic novel and I enjoyed reading about both the Jewish and Native American sides of Mia's heritage. I learned quite a bit about both. I think that this is graphic novel that would appeal to all ages and teaches an important lesson about honesty and staying true to yourself.

“Judaism expresses over and over that all humans are equal.”

Mia lives in L.A. with her Jewish mother and stepfather, attends Jewish Day School, and is becoming a bat mitzvah. Her mother never talks to her about her father, so Mia takes matters into her own hands. She uses the gifts from her bat mitzvah to take a bus to Tulsa to visit her dad and learn more about her Muscogee side.

I thought racism was handled very well in this book. Mia and her friend Chloe are the only two people of color at their school, and they are bullied for being “adopted”. Chloe is Chinese-American and was adopted, but Mia is not. Mia stands up to the kids and her class, and her rabbi for making a bad joke. We get a brief history lesson about the displacement and genocide of Indigenous peoples, and residential schools. We see how misinformation is easily spread and in particular how Indigenous people are often depicted as the bad guys in literature.

I learned so much about Jewish and Muscogee culture. From Mia helping her mother prepare for Shabbat, to Mia going to her first powwow. I also loved the similarities between the two. This is truly a special book and this representation is so important.

This semi-autobiographical graphic novel is about a girl learning about her identity as an indigenous American and a Jewish teen. Her parents are divorced, so it's a challenge for her to connect to all aspects of her culture. After planning a secret visit to her dad in Tulsa, Mia has a better appreciation for her indigenous ancestry. Very simple plot but great representation!

An emotional graphic novel that follows a young teen as she struggles to connect her Jewish and Muskogee identities. Typical plot of "teen sneaks off for a weekend, lies about where she is going, and thinks no one will find out." It was a little preachy at times and some dialouge felt artificial, but it got its points across and could be a useful resource for tweens and teens who are figuring out their place in the world. Includes positive representations of Jewish and Native American cultures and traditions.

Thank you to Netgalley and Heartdrum for this ARC!

- I wanted to like this one more, but I think it could’ve been developed better! A lot of the conflicts were resolved really easily, considering that they deal with pretty serious topics.
- this book is for younger audiences, so sometimes it was a bit heavy handed.
- I did enjoy getting to see both the Jewish and Muskogee culture. It was especially cool to see the overlap between the two.
- I enjoyed the way that Mia’s cousin’s character developed throughout the story!

Thank you to HarperCollins Children's Books, Heartdrum, and NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. Two Tribes is a graphic novel about finding your identity when you come from two very distinct cultures. The plot flowed smoothly and the art is really well done. I really liked how the parent child dynamics played out in this book as well as the portrayal of a realistic divorce. It is an own voice story that portrays Jewish and Muscogee cultures in an informative way that doesn't take away from the narrative story. Definitely recommend for any teen or adult.

Electronic Arc provided by NetGalley

Mia is being raised in the Jewish faith by her mother and stepfather. She is estranged from her father, who is in Oklahoma and part of the Muscogee tribe. Throughout the book Mia struggles to find her identity in both the Jewish and Muscogee worlds. As Mia finds her way, the reader comes along to learn more about both of these communities and religions.

Being an Oklahoman born and raised, as well as someone who values Native American culture (more native authors, please!), I was super excited about this book! As I was reading, I was disappointed to see my state misrepresented and stereotyped. The first thing the main character sees when she gets off the bus in Tulsa is a cowboy who says "Howdy." There are hardly any cowboys in Oklahoma, especially in Tulsa (one of the biggest cities in Oklahoma). Broken Arrow is depicted as a ranch when, in reality, only a small portion of Broken Arrow is rural and in the country. Most of it is suburban houses and is barely distinguishable from the big city of Tulsa. I found it humorous that one character even states, "I wish I lived in a big city like you." While Tulsa is definitely not as big LA, it IS still a big city. There were several racist comments about Native-Americans that I have never personally felt to be true. Perhaps in California there are more racist but I have traveled several places across the US and depicting Natives as "barbaric" or "animalistic" is very old-fashioned and not terms most people would describe anymore. It seemed like archaic terms. I was hurt in that trying to make a point about breaking Native American stereotypes, the author stereotyped my own state. While it was excellent to see multiple cultures represented, I don't think the author accurately represented EVERY culture she had in the novel. Additionally, I am curious to know if the author has even visited Oklahoma and, if so, how long she stayed because her representation seemed very ignorant and misinformed.

Thank you to #NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for allowing me to read a digital ARC of Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen. All opinions are my own.

Mia is still getting used to living with her mom and stepdad and the new role that being Jewish plays in their home. While her mom is Jewish, her father, who lives in Oklahoma, is Muscogee. Mia is struggling with her identity as she’s torn between her Jewish and Muscogee sides, so she hatches a plan and uses her bat mitzvah gift money to buy a bus ticket and visit her father. Their she connects with her father, his family, and his culture, and learns that her two cultures are equally important.

I thought this was a really cool idea for a graphic novel. I also enjoyed the artwork and color palette. The story itself fell a little short for me. I didn’t get to learn about either culture nearly as much as I would have liked. Everything seemed very surface level.

Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen (Heartdrum, August 2023) is a middle-grade graphic novel featuring a girl with a unique heritage: she is half Jewish and half Native American, spending most of her life with her Jewish mother and devout Jewish stepfather and attending a Jewish middle school. When people start teasing her about her identity and questioning her ethnicity, she decides to learn more about her Native American heritage.

Mia’s interest in learning about her Native American heritage is sparked by racist jokes, including a comment about “savages” from the rabbi at her school. She also reads a historical fiction novel that depicts Native Americans as violent kidnappers. Since Two Tribes is a graphic novel, the author uses a different shade and illustration style for Mia’s thoughts and her interpretations of this novel. The pastel and cartoony style of these thoughts is an important contrast to the unpleasant scenes that are depicted in Mia’s thoughts.

Since Mia does not have a relationship with her father, she feels estranged from her Native heritage. Her mother won’t talk about Mia’s father, so Mia does not feel she can mention her conflicting emotions. Through subterfuge, she leaves home and travels to Oklahoma without permission to visit her father, stepmother, and family. In Oklahoma, she explores her Muskogee traditions. She meets a cousin with her own unique interpretation of a Native tradition, and she bonds with her extended family. Mia’s story emphasizes the importance of learning about one’s culture and the challenges of having multiple heritages.

As a parent, I disliked that Mia chose to lie in order to travel across the country without her parents’ knowledge. Although most tweens will know better than to imitate Mia’s dangerous decision, I wish Mia’s journey to learning her identify omitted inappropriate behavior such as this. To me, it detracted from the story of identity and heritage.

Interestingly, the author weaves in a lesson from the Book of Jonah, highlighting Jonah’s evasion of responsibility. It is Mia’s rabbi who introduces these thoughts. This adds an intriguing religious dynamic to Mia’s story and her identity as Mia explores her Jewish faith alongside her Muscogee heritage. I appreciated the contrast between the two and how the Biblical story ties into the partly autobiographical graphic novel.

Two Tribes effectively portrays the enrichment brought by Native American traditions and the joy that comes from exploring one’s heritage. The graphic novel format brings this message to a young audience in an easily accessible and clear way. Although the graphic novel has its issues, it shows a positive and unique perspective that gives a distinct “own voice” to the discussion of identity.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance review copy of this book provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Good story. Great message.. Questions of identity are perennial, and the two cultures shown here are so often underrepresented or missrepresented. I do feel that the speech felt a bit stiff and unrealistic. The art work was was flat and bland. The afterwards was nice, but an additional resource guide would have been most welcome.

Overall, not bad, but there was more potential.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley. Content warning for racism.)

Mia Harjo Horowitz belongs to two tribes: her mother is Jewish and her biological father, Van, is a member of the Muscogee Nation. They split up when Mia was just three; Mia and her mother now live in West Hills, California with her stepfather Roger. A middle schooler, Mia attends West Hills Jewish Community School, where she's preparing for her bat mitzvah. The immersion in religious and cultural studies - along with racist bullying at school - have got Mia thinking about her Native American heritage, which none of the adults in her life seem to want to talk about. Feeling like she has no other option, Mia takes her bat mitzvah money and secretly buys a ticket to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to learn more about her Muscogee ancestry. Naturally, she gets caught.

Loosely based on the author's experiences growing up as a Jewish-Muscogee kid (though, it's worth noting, her mother was much more open to exploring both sides of the family tree), TWO TRIBES is an important book with great representation, if not the best execution. Perhaps it's the book's audience (middle school), but it felt like the book's central conflicts were solved a little too easily, i.e., the adults all saw the error of their ways and rectified their behaviors without much pushback. The language feels a bit awkward and stilted, as does the artwork, occasionally (the hands especially threw me off).

On the positive side, I enjoyed the glimpses of Muscogee culture Bowen Cohen treats us to. Likewise, she also does an admirable job depicting the racism that Mia - and her friend Chloe, a Chinese American girl adopted into a Jewish family - face as two of the only girls of color at a Jewish school. (The scenes where Mia unwittingly checked a racist book out of the library to learn more about her Native American heritage are devastating.) Ditto: delving into this country's genocidal treatment of its Indigenous inhabitants.

I enjoyed this book. When a person comes from two different tribes is it hard to balance both. Especially when your parents are not getting along. She lives with her mom and step dad who are Jewish and she hasn't see her father in a long time. She goes to a Jewish school where she doesn't look like the other kids. She lies to her mom and step-dad that she is going on a trip with her Jewish school. But takes a bus trip to see her dad and his family and her Muskogee family. I love how Mia is founding who she is. From her Jewish identity to her Muscogee identity.

This is a delightful read, sharing the journey of a young girl discovering the intersectionality’s of her individual person. The other story line opposite Miss self discovery journey is one in which Myths relating to indigenous peoples are dispelled. Lots of information sharing about Shabbat and being a part of a tribe brings a family once torn apart, back together. A wholesome read

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this title. Based on the author’s experience, this book delves into the main character reconciling her Jewish and Muscogee backgrounds. Students may relate to living in two different worlds and trying to find a way to feel at home in both places. This was an engaging graphic novel!

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5

This was a quick read that delved into thorny topics of identity and self-respect. I was surprised at the ending; it felt abrupt and did not provide closure on Mia's father's side of the family.