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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2005, 256 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2006, 272 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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In this captivating sequel to National Book Award nominee The Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich continues the story of Omakayas and her family.
Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first
step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. It is 1850, and
the lives of the Ojibwe have returned to a familiar rhythm: they build their
birchbark houses in the summer, go to the ricing camps in the fall to
harvest and feast, and move to their cozy cedar log cabins near the town of
LaPointe before the first snows.
The satisfying routines of Omakayas's
days are interrupted by a surprise visit from a group of desperate and
mysterious people. From them, she learns that all their lives may
drastically change. The chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and
her people to leave their island in Lake Superior and move farther west.
Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never
knew she had it in the first place, is in danger: Her home. Her way of life.
In this captivating sequel to National Book Award nominee The
Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich continues the story of Omakayas and her
family.
ONE
The Raggedy Ones
When they were close enough to touch bottom with their paddles, the people poured out of the nearly swamped canoes. The grown-ups held little ones and the little ones held even smaller ones. There were so many people jammed into each boat that it was a wonder they had made it across. The grown-ups, the ones who wore clothes, bunched around the young. A murmur of pity started among the people who had gathered on shore when they heard Omakayas's shout, for the children had no clothing at all, they were naked. In a bony, hungry, anxious group, the people from the boats waded ashore. They looked at the ground, fearfully and in shame. They were like skinny herons with long poles for legs and clothes like drooping feathers. Only their leader, a tall old man wearing a turban of worn cloth, walked with a proud step and held his head up as a leader should. He stood calmly, waiting for his people to assemble. When everyone was ashore and a crowd...
This is a wonderful book that our whole family enjoyed when we read it aloud together. Erdrich writes from the heart about the life of her 19th century Ojibwa ancestors...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
When asked
what inspired her to write these
books, Erdrich says, "My mother
and sister did research that led
our family back to Madeline
Island. Standing on the shores
of Lake Superior, I have
wondered whether my ancestors
stood in the same place, saw the
same scene, heard the same
sounds --- the high-pitched cry
of the flicker or the white
throated sparrow's song. It was
natural to want to write about
the past, for me, and it came
from the heart."
She lives in Minnesota with her
...
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