A middle grade graphic novel about being torn between two identities.

Mia lives with her Jewish mother and stepfather, but she finds herself longing to spend more time with her Native American father. She hatches a plan to stay with her father and learn more about her heritage...without her mother finding out.

I think this is a very real struggle many of my students have, particularly when they feel removed from one of their identities. A definite add to my library.

My Thoughts:
This graphic story inspired by Emily Bowen Cohenʻs life, is about Mia who lives with her mom and new stepfather. She is sent to Jewish day school and as a family, they practice Jewish traditions. But Mia is also part Muskogee from her biological fatherʻs side. Like her mom, her dad lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Mia sticks out at her Jewish day school because she does not look like her classmates, and that just makes her hungry to get to know her Native American side of her identity. Her plan is to take her bat mitzvah money and sneak away to Oklahoma to visit her dad and his new family. It is a little disturbing that her mother does not seem to see her or that the teachers at the Jewish school do not curb the ethnic shaming by the students, especially when Semitic attacks are prevalent in the world.

Her mother eventually finds out and is very upset that Mia left and was staying with her dad and his family, but eventually she understands that the divorce is not about Mia and Mia should not be isolated from both sides of her family.

As teachers we cannot control parents, but it is our job to ensure that all students understand their identity as well as the gifts that come with being and/both, not one or the other.

This is another book out of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint of Harper Collins Children's Books.

From the Publisher:
Mia is still getting used to living with her mom and stepfather, and to the new role their Jewish identity plays in their home. Feeling out of place at home and at her Jewish day school, Mia finds herself thinking more and more about her Muscogee father, who lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Her mother doesn’t want to talk about him, but Mia can’t help but feel like she’s missing a part of herself without him in her life.

Soon, Mia makes a plan to use the gifts from her bat mitzvah to take a bus to Oklahoma—without telling her mom—to visit her dad and find the connection to her Muscogee side she knows is just as important as her Jewish side.

Publication Information:
Author, Illustrator: Emily Bowen Cohen

Publisher: Heartdrum (August 15, 2023)

I would love to see someone write an essay on how the author chose to redraw the cover with a Star of David because presumably everyone at Harper thought the double necklace as it actually appears in the narrative (hamsa) would be too niche or something

This is very good but not perfect. As a Jew of color, I particularly like that it doesn't pull punches when describing racism among white Jews, particularly affluent white Ashkenazim who send their kids to private school. I did feel like the church thing with the father and stepmother were a bit underdeveloped and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get ick vibes, and I kept waiting for them to try and convert her or say something weird to her, which never happened and is great, but like...idk, maybe it's my own discomfort when people who talk about their church. I also felt like the way the mom talked about the father kept going back and forth between melodramatic and actually traumatic, and the author couldn't really decide where to land, and all that just made it harder for me to figure out who he was as a character. And of course the ending was a little bit pat, but the heart of the story was very good, and I am always here for books about mixed kids coming up with their own personal syncretism.

This is a story that so many kids will relate to as the product of different cultures. Though their struggles may be culturally different, it is great to have a story that reflects the beauty and internal struggles associated with expectations (family and self) when you are the progeny of multiple cultures.

This graphic novel was an amazing look at what it feels like to have two cultures within us and the conflicting feelings we have when we discover who we are. Cohen discusses the many complicated feelings that come with being bi-racial while living with only half of your family and understanding only one half of your culture. As Mia does research on her family's history, she reads a book with incredibly insulting depictions of indigenous people and determines that she wants to learn more about her Muskogee heritage from her father in Oklahoma. This book brings up several great points about the importance of family connection, language, and building your own, unique identity.

‘Two Tribes’ with story and art by Emily Bowen Cohen is a graphic novel about a young woman who comes from a diverse background and the conflicts that cause her.

Mia lives with her mom and step-dad and is going to a Jewish school, but she doesn’t look like a lot of the other students. Her Muscogee dad lives in Oklahoma and Mia doesn’t see him very much, but she feels like that part of herself is missing. She makes a plan and sneaks off to visit him. While there, she reconnects with a side of her that feels authentic. Can Mia live in both worlds?

This is a great story about a young woman struggling with the different cultures she comes from. The story is well told and the art is nice.

I adored this graphic novel about a girl from two cultures. Mia's parents don't speak to each other and she hasn't seen her father since she was small. Her mother is a devoutly religious Jew and her father is a member of the Muscogee Nation. Mia devises a plan to visit her father so she can learn more about that half of her heritage.

I love stories about discovering more about your culture and this book did a beautiful job of exploring both sides of Mia's heritage. I really appreciated the way the author handled discussing microaggressions. This is such an important story and one I hope many children get to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this graphic novel. 3.5/5 stars.

I really enjoy graphic novels for difficult issues, and I appreciate how this one discussed multiple identities within the main character. Being Jewish is at the forefront of her identity since her Native side is from her father -- who is estranged from her mother and stepfather. After making a decision to secretly visit her father, she learns more about her indigenous roots while also making connections to her jewish roots.

It was a quick read detailing important issues and conversations.

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.