The Birchbark House
Ratings4
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.5
Omakayas and her family live on land her people called The Island of the Gold Breasted Wood Pecker. Even though more and more white people come to live on their land, life goes on as always. Every summer they build a new birchbark house, every fall they go to pick rice at a ricing camp, and in winter they feast on maple sugar and celebrate the end of winter. Omakayas is content and spends the days playing with her baby brother Neewo, fighting with her annoying brother Pinch, and having adventures with her crow Andeg. But her world is crushed when Omakayas faces another deadly enemy, one she cannot fight.
Reviews with the most likes.
Would love to see this taught alongside Little House in the Big Woods or Little House on the Prairie. Lovely to see Omakayas' growth as the seasons change in this book, and as she encounters more complicated and heart-rending experiences.
Summary: Omakayas, a member of the Ojibwa Native American tribe, is a spirited young girl who, throughout the course of the book, learns about a special gift that she has. Her family and her tribe work hard, using the resources around them to make their living and experiencing several hardships along the way—some of them almost unspeakably painful. The book, in my opinion, is pretty slow getting started, but a little over halfway through, it starts to pick up, and it offers an excellent depiction of Native American life.
Series
3 primary booksBirchbark House is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 1999 with contributions by Louise Erdrich.
