I really enjoyed this graphic novel. It was beautiful in message and illustrations. A great representation of Jewish and indigenous people. This authors struggles growing up were reflected in this book. I loved learning about the mc's two tribes.

Tru is eager to understand her American Indian side. Her parents' divorce has nearly erased this side of her. Desperate to learn more of herself she uses her bahmitzah money to "runaway". In the aftermath of her decisions, she is able to teach her Rabi and help him understand the Torah. The greater understanding is that you can be all your identities.
VERDICT A fabulous Jewish non Holocaust addition. Perfect for students of multiple cultures.

Heartwarming, relatable, informative, poignant, and unique (in all of the best ways possible), Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen is a sparkling debut graphic novel that will stay with you long after the final page.

The story is about a young, Jewish girl, named Mia, who struggles with her identity, especially because she is also Muscogee Native American, but has never learned about that side of her. For nearly her entire life, she has been shut off from her Native heritage and culture, as well as her father, so she's felt lost and unsure of herself, but unable to identify those feelings. It's not until she begins to face increasing discrimination from students at her Hebrew school — who claim she's not "native enough" — and racist remarks from her rabbi, that she yearns to learn more about who she fully is.

As Mia will discover, however, there's no easy answer and there's definitely no picking and choosing to who you are. Embracing all of who you are is what makes a person whole.
Emily Bowen Cohen has created a beautiful graphic memoir with lessons on family, on spirituality and religion, and on adolescence, all in a way that has the readers processing it from the view of Mia's mind. It's not preachy and it's not like reading a lecture. It's a heartwarming story and brilliantly told.

The illustrations, also by Emily Bowen Cohen, beautifully bring the characters alive.

Two Tribes releases on August 15, 2023, and I highly recommend that everyone should grab themselves a copy.

Thank you to netgalley and the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed this -- it's relatable, sensitive, and fun. Though it's first and foremost Mia's story, I appreciated how many of the adults owned their mistakes and moved on to do better. I look forward to adding Two Tribes to my elementary school library's collection!

Many thanks for the opportunity to read and review!

There is a lot going on in Two Tribes. You have a teen girl heavily involved in a Jewish upbringing but also struggling with her mostly unacknowledged indigenous background. The parents have definitely made some mistakes in this one, but the daughter also acts pretty rashly. I think this graphic novel will be well received by those with many intersections in their identity and culture.

Really great graphic novel about a mixed Native girl trying to find her place in the world. She's living with her Jewish mother and Jewish stepfather, but doesn't know where her native heritage fits in and she feels like an outcast until she is able to sneak away and visit her estranged father and his family. A love for her culture ignites as she struggles to combine both sides of herself.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

This was a sweet and informative graphic novel. I have recently read a lot of phenomenal indigenous stories but loved having the graphics to go along with the story telling. It was really fun to see the Powwow and not just imagine what it was like based on the narrative. I also really loved the whole story around being a part of “two tribes.” Our protagonist is not only learning about her indigenous heritage but also about being Jewish. And she doesn’t diminish either side. She gets frustrated when her mom and that side of her life only prioritizes the Jewish part of her but she was able to educate that this was only one part of her and that they needed to respect her other sides as well. She’s not a monolith. Another thing that I enjoyed about this story was the nerdy cousin. I think that nerd culture is so gate kept by white fans that characters such as the nerdy indigenous cousin aren’t even thought of as being real. So I LOVED that - and also as a nerd myself, I love seeing her in her outfits. (Also really enjoyed the tid bit at the end with the wig advice). I think this story might be a tad too young for my high schoolers but it’s a really sweet and informative read for students wanting to learn about themselves and also those who are different than them.

We're still at a point where it's rare to see Jewish culture and religion depicted in graphic novels, and the cultures of modern Indigenous people is even harder to find. In this book our protagonist contends with both, and with the struggle to forge her own identity. In this heartfelt graphic based on the author's own experiences, we see Mia struggling with the question of who she is and who she wants to be. Characters are nuanced--and just about everyone in the story makes errors of judgement or behavior and need to learn better. Mia's father and mother did not separate amicably--and so it causes friction when Mia wants to learn more about her Muscogee heritage and get to know that side of herself. I appreciate that the author provides both stories from Mia's Jewish upbringing and a sacred Muscogee story. Mia's efforts to figure herself out and reconnect with her dad are something a lot of middle grade readers will recognize. An important book for collections to have!

An interesting graphic novel - I loved the examination of the two cultures, but didn't connect with the illustrations.

Mia is a young girl who is learning more about her Jewish heritage, but also wants to learn more about her Muscogee heritage.

This graphic novel is a wonderful look at what it’s like to grow up in a community where you’re different than everyone around you. I loved that as Mia learned more about her Muscogee identity she realized that there were similarities to Judaism and eventually found ways to blend them together, just like she is a blend of both! And even though it wasn't the whole focus of the book I thought this was also a good look at what having divorced parents is like.

I think this book also did a great job highlighting one of the missteps that, in my opinion, happens a lot in minority groups, which is that they can hold ignorant and discriminatory ideas about other minorities. Of course not all Jews are white/Ashkenazi and can come from all over the world, but that doesn’t stop discrimination occurring within the Jewish community. In this case Jewish people Mia interacts with were dismissive or disparaging about her Muscogee identity.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

I liked that we see Mia wanting to know more about her Oklahoma Muscogee heritage. I liked that she also liked a lot of things about being Jewish and how she was learning to blend the two.
A good book about understanding that you can belong to more than one group and it can help shape who you are. The graphics are great too.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

What a wonderful way to express the need to express both sides of your life. Showing people how you can embrace both sides without negating one or the other. The Art style is lovely and cute as well.

A debut MG graphic novel about being both Jewish and Indigenous.
✡️
Mia lives with her mother and stepfather and just had her bat mitzvah. She attends a Jewish day school where she feels out of place since she doesn’t look like a lot of the kids who go there. Her mom doesn’t talk much about Van, Mia’s father who is Native American from the Muscogee tribe. Mia is desperate to learn more about that part of herself so she uses her birthday money to buy a bus ticket to Oklahoma and visit her dad and his new family. After a weekend of fun, culture and bonding, Mia’s mom discovers she’s not on a field trip like she told her and comes to get Mia. How is Mia able to balance and understand both parts of her?
🪶
I learned so much about both Judaism and Indigenous cultures/religions through this book and know that it’s information all our kids need to learn more about too. Thank you Heartdrum @harpercollins for publishing titles like this. Two Tribes releases August 15.

CW: racism, microaggressions

The artwork wasn’t my favorite and something just kept it from being a full 5 ⭐️ but the representation was *chef’s kiss*

Mia is both Jewish and Muscogee. She knows all about her Jewish heritage and customs, as her mother has her go to Jewish school. What she doesn’t know is about her Muscogee heritage, since her parents divorced when she was three. She is teased at school, when she mentions that she is Indigenous, and the only book she can find at the library is a horrid one that makes Indigenous people look like savages.

So she decides to take her Bat Mitzvah money and go to Oklahoma to visit her father, and find out about the heritage that she feels she should know about as well. But…she doesn’t tell her mother where she is going, and she doesn’t tell her father that she neglected to get permission to come.

Based on the authors own two heritages, this is a great story of becoming aware of what you are lacking, even though she went about it not quite the correct way. Very real feelings about how Mia feels out of place. And the logical way she came about solving that, even though it wasn’t the right way to do so.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. The book comes out August 15, 2023, and is to be published by Heartdrum, an imprint that focuses on contemporary Indigenous youth.