The Birchbark House (Paperback)
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Staff Reviews
Omakayas lives on Madeline Island off the northern shore of Lake Superior. Erdrich details through seven year old Omakayas (little frog) the daily rituals and routines that define the seasons: sugaring, hunting and curing hides, gathering rice and settling in the snug cabin for the wintertime. Taking place during the westward expansion in the mid 1800s as Omakayas' people are being pushed away from their homes by the "chimookoman", white settlers. There is also the heartbreak of smallpox and the secret that Omakayas learns about herself. This is the first book in the Birchbark series
— lynnDescription
"[In this] story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, living on an island in Lake Superior around 1847, Louise Erdrich is reversing the narrative perspective used in most children's stories about nineteenth-century Native Americans. Instead of looking out at 'them' as dangers or curiosities, Erdrich, drawing on her family's history, wants to tell about 'us', from the inside. The Birchbark House establishes its own ground, in the vicinity of Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House' books." --The New York Times Book Review