The Birchbark House - Hardcover

Erdrich, Louise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786803002 ISBN 13: 9780786803002

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children, 1999

Synopsis

In the first of a cycle of novels partly based on her own family history, Erdrich offers a compelling and original saga, told from the point of view of a young Ojibwa girl on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.

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Reviews

PLB 0-7865-2241-4 With this volume, Erdrich (Grandmother's Pigeon, 1996, etc.) launches her cycle of novels about a 19th-century Ojibwa family, covering in vivid detail their everyday life as they move through the seasons of one year on an island on Lake Superior. A baby girl crawls among the bodies of her family, dead from smallpox. After that stinging beginning, an unexpectedly enjoyable story follows, replete with believable characterizations, humor, family love, and misadventures. Omakayas, now seven, adores baby brother Neewo, detests rambunctious five-year-old brother Pinch, and worships her beautiful teenage sister, Angeline. Omakayas works and plays through the summer and fall, learning the ways of her people; she has a frightful adventure with bears and adopts a young raven as a pet. But in winter smallpox again affects her life: Neewo dies, and Angeline is scarred for life. Omakayas cannot find her way back to happiness until an odd old woman tells her the truth of her past, in a novel that is by turns charming, suspenseful, and funny, and always bursting with life. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Erdrich's (Grandmother's Pigeon) debut novel for children is the first in a projected cycle of books centering on an Ojibwa family on an island in Lake Superior. Opening in the summer of 1847, the story follows the family, in a third-person narrative, through four seasons; it focuses on young Omakayas, who turns "eight winters old" during the course of the novel. In fascinating, nearly step-by-step details, the author describes how they build a summer home out of birchbark, gather with extended family to harvest rice in the autumn, treat an attack of smallpox during the winter and make maple syrup in the spring to stock their own larder and to sell to others. Against the backdrop of Ojibwa cultural traditions, Omakayas also conveys the universal experiences of childhoodAa love of the outdoors, a reluctance to do chores, devotion to a petAas well as her ability to cope with the seemingly unbearable losses of the winter. The author hints at Omakayas's unusual background and her calling as a healer, as well as the imminent dangers of the "chimookoman" or white people, setting the stage for future episodes. Into her lyrical narrative, Erdrich weaves numerous Ojibwa words, effectively placing them in context to convey their meanings. Readers will want to follow this family for many seasons to come. Ages 9-up. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786803002
• ISBN 13: 9780786803002
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256