The Game of Silence

Birchbark House #2

by Louise Erdrich

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, The Game of Silence is the second novel in the critically acclaimed Birchbark House series by New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich. This middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 5 to 6, especially during homeschooling. It’s a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.



Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. One day in 1850, Omakayas’s island is visited by a group of mysterious people. From them, she learns that the chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and her people to leave their island and move farther west.

That day, Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never knew she had it in the first place, could be in danger: Her way of life. Her home.

The Birchbark House Series is the story of one Ojibwe family’s journey through one hundred years in America. The New York Times Book Review raved about The Game of Silence: “Erdrich has created a world, fictional but real: absorbing, funny, serious and convincingly human.”

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Native American, Middle Grade, Historical, Indigenous, Childrens

271 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2005

About the author

Karen Louise Erdrich is a American author of novels, poetry, and children's books. Her father is German American and mother is half Ojibwe and half French American. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Chippewa). She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant Native writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.

For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/louise-e...

From a book description:

Author Biography:

Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of contemporary Native American novelists. Born in 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota, she grew up mostly in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her parents taught at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through her mother. She worked at various jobs, such as hoeing sugar beets, farm work, waitressing, short order cooking, lifeguarding, and construction work, before becoming a writer. She attended the Johns Hopkins creative writing program and received fellowships at the McDowell Colony and the Yaddo Colony. After she was named writer-in-residence at Dartmouth, she married professor Michael Dorris and raised several children, some of them adopted. She and Michael became a picture-book husband-and-wife writing team, though they wrote only one truly collaborative novel, The Crown of Columbus (1991).

The Antelope Wife was published in 1998, not long after her separation from Michael and his subsequent suicide. Some reviewers believed they saw in The Antelope Wife the anguish Erdrich must have felt as her marriage crumbled, but she has stated that she is unconscious of having mirrored any real-life events.

She is the author of four previous bestselling andaward-winning novels, including Love Medicine; The Beet Queen; Tracks; and The Bingo Palace. She also has written two collections of poetry, Jacklight, and Baptism of Desire. Her fiction has been honored by the National Book Critics Circle (1984) and The Los Angeles Times (1985), and has been translated into fourteen languages.

Several of her short stories have been selected for O. Henry awards and for inclusion in the annual Best American Short Story anthologies. The Blue Jay's Dance, a memoir of motherhood, was her first nonfiction work, and her children's book, Grandmother's Pigeon, has been published by Hyperion Press. She lives in Minnesota with her children, who help her run a small independent bookstore called The Birchbark.

Reviews

[Book Concierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Digital audiobook performed by Anna Fields.

Book two in the Birchbark House series which is about an Ojibwa tribe’s life on their island in Lake Superior in the mid-19th century. Omakayas is the young girl who narrates this book, which chronicles a year on the island that is today known as Madeline Island.

I love how Erdrich depicts these people and their way of life. Not everything is pleasant or easy, but there is room for joy and happiness, for children to explore and learn. I loved the various adventures (and misadventures) Omakayas, her younger brother Pinch and cousin Two Strike, a girl who is every bit as strong and fierce as any boy her age, get into. It is two years after book one, and Omakayas is growing up. At age nine she has more responsibility to help with the necessary tasks of tribal living. Her intelligence, courage and spirit are recognized by the elders, and her friendship with a white girl, whom she calls “the Break Apart Girl” because of her tightly corseted waist, will be important to them all as they face the changes to their way of life.

Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwa, and she spoke to various Ojibwa elders about the significance of Madeline Island. Events depicted are historically accurate. The text version includes Erdrich’s pencil drawing illustrations. I will definitely continue reading this series.

Anna Fields does a marvelous job narrating the audiobook. She sets a good pace and her diction is clear enough that even younger children will not have trouble following the story.

[Kilian Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize that this is a children's book. I enjoyed it as an adult and was sorry when it ended. The illustrations did not display well on my Kindle, but aside from this, the story was highly enjoyable. A young girl's memories of hard times for her tribe form the heart of her story. Happy in her island home, she and her family are forced to leave it behind due to pressure from the white people. Aside from this major trouble, her life is full of happy events and minor annoyance. She enjoys making friends, growing up, learning her own gifts, and how she fits in with the tribe.

I grew up in the Southwest, and my knowledge of Native Americans has been limited to the tribes of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. It was a real treat to learn about another tribe, this time the Ojibway.

[kaity · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this series with my nine-year-old is a great joy. The Spanglish of our home is now peppered with Ojibwe language.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

AUDIOBOOK: So glad to have reader Anna Fields back for this one. This little series has not gotten the attention it should. The stories that weave this Native tribe life is touching and real. I read somewhere it is similar to Little House on the Prairie and more and more I see the comparison. This would be so good to share with young readers to teach history, connection to the land and compassion to living beings of all sorts.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great followup book to The Birchbark House. It begins with the "Game of Silence" in which the children are allowed to sit in the council house while the adults discuss business, but only if they are completely silent. The ones who sit in silence for the whole time win little prizes. Of course, part of the game is silently teasing each other to see who can make someone else break their silence! But during this particular council, the children's attention is caught by the adults' discussion and their game is forgotten. The white settlers are drawing nearer and nearer, forcing the natives from their homes, killing some, while the ones who escape are left to starve with no food or shelter. The adults are discussing moving on before they are forced to go--by circumstances beyond their control.

Too soon, this lesson is driven home, as refugees from another island appear, starving and freezing. There are children whose parents have been killed, men and women both who have lost spouses and children. While the tribe adopts these wanderers, it just cements their resolve to move further west and north where the white settlers have not yet come.

At the end of the book, as the tribe moves away from their ancestral homeland, they are once again playing the "Game of Silence" as the canoes move through enemy territory on their way to a new unknown life.

This was a riveting book, an excellent portrayal of life among the native Americans before their lives were changed forever, through the eyes of a young girl, Omakayas. While it is targeted to middle grade students, I found it engaging as an adult.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7

p 101
Nokomis was looking for puffballs. The small round mushrooms dried out over the summer and contained a special powder that was ready in the fall. The brown silky powder was blessed by the ginebigoog, the snakes, and it was good medicine. It had many uses, including the healing of cuts and scrapes.

Nokomis - Omakayas' grandmother
special powder - spores
ginebigoog - snakes

Erdrich uses Ojibwa word in this series. They're introduced and repeated throughout the book. At the end, there's a 5-page glossary. This gives the story a stronger sense of place and culture.

[Brenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Louise Erdrich's children's books. This is the 2nd in The Birchbark House series. Miss Erdrich does include a short glossary at the end, but at the same time, she explains the words in the storyline as well.
The main character, Omakayas, is older and has learned more. Much of her Ojibwe family is still with her and continues to teach her as she deals with the winter season, the white settlement near her home, and more. Definitely was worth reading this continuation of Omakayas's story.

[Crizzle · Rating 4 out of 5]

2nd book in the Birchbark series my 11 year old daughter and I are reading (and loving). This one was as sweet and emotional, with heart ache but not the same heartbreak as the first. The author’s illustrations were just as soft and simple. Again, a must-read for all Little House on the Prairie fans!

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Here, after all, was not only danger but possibility. Here was adventure. Here was the next life they would live together on this earth."

[Gina Notes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the second book in The Birchbark House series and we enjoyed it very much. Omakayas is starting to grow up and come into her own power with her dreams and visions of the future. Her people are in danger of being moved from their homes, and you dive into more of her grandmother’s stories and family life. We look forward to reading the third one next.

[Nicole Keaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these books so much! They read way more naturally than most books I’ve read from a Native American perspective (often written by white people).

[Krystal 🦢 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Family Read Aloud. Second book in the series. I cried at the end.

[HEichEL · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging & interesting story. It was hard to put down. So glad there are lots more books to the series, I'm super attached to these characters.

[Rhonda Siebert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book even more than the first. Perhaps because I was already somewhat familiar with the characters.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful continuation to The Birchbark House, set in the 1850s, that tells the story of Omakayas and her Objibwe family. Erdrich does a wonderful job telling a bittersweet story of a loving family whose way of life is about to change dramatically. A culturally rich middle grade story that adds much depth to a lesser known historical viewpoint.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erdrich just writes so beautifully. Even in a "kids book", she infuses beautiful prose, and does not hold back or dumb things down. But more importantly, the ideas, the paradigms about life, are complex and nuanced, giving all readers a glimpse of this incredible Ojibwe world.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Louise Erdrich, and I really liked this book, but maybe I've missed something. It FELT like a book written for ummm . . . . younger than young adults, maybe on the verge of young adult, more like mature fifth or sixth grader, and it has sketches. That's the kind of book my grandchildren read. It also has a lot of Ojibwa words, which you can usually figure out in context, and there is a vocabulary list in the back that explains all of them. It seems to fit in with all the other books I buy and love and crave more of, but maybe the story before the longer, more adult books.

The Game of Silence is written from the point of view of a young girl, learning to be a good citizen, and a good woman, doing womens work, which she often detests. Womens work is pretty repetitive; at least this little girl loves babies. It is an in-depth look at how a year is lived, how food is grown, gathered and stored for the long hungry winters, how rabbits are snared, how hides are scraped and tanned - all really good stuff. Maybe a little tedious.

There are hints of Erdrich's magic in the descriptions of the adults and their stories, but they are all filtered through the understanding of our very young heroine. We may extrapolate, but we don't know.

The period is the coming of the Europeans, who make agreements and break agreements, snatch up the land and force this peaceful group of people to migrate westwards, into the territory of their enemies.

[Stephanie Fuhr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 2 brought better stories from the elders, Omakayas honing in on her gifts, a lot more page time for my fave character, Old Tallow, and exposure those old double standards of my spirituality trumps yours. Next book promises hardship and interactions with other native peoples.

[That Weaver Lady · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these books. They have this special, warm place in my heart and it makes me feel more at peace just to read them. Sigh.

There is so much good in here. The introduction of the Angry One. Two Strike's transformation into a warrior. Omakayas' transformation into a healer. The continued presence of strong, tough women in the shape of the grandmother, mother, and Old Tallow. The love story of Fishtail and Angeline. The characters are so beautifully represented you feel like you know them...or if not, that you want to.

As with "The Birchbark House", I appreciate that Erdrich does not back off of the difficulties that were experienced by the early Native people because the main audience for this series is children. There are real stakes to the world that these people are living in, and the outcome for dark situations is often not positive. This is a brave, writerly move in a country that often wants to rewrite the history of its Native people in order to make the story of our past more "paletteable" to mainstream audiences.

The "About the Author" portion of this book says that Erdrich plans to write seven more of these stories, and I have the next three on my shelf waiting to be read. When it's complete, I believe this series will stand out among the classics of children's historical literature. And as a Native girl that will one day have Native girls of her own, that makes me so happy.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The enthralling, beguiling tale of the coming of age of an Ojibwe girl, Omakayas (Little Frog) in northern Minnesota in the 1850�s was a fine �read� by audiobook. It is a sequel to The Birchbark House. Though targeted to young adults, I found the portrayal of the rhythms of life in a tribal clan on an island in Lake Superior plenty satisfying enough to recommend to any adult reader. The girl telling the story is on a path of excellence in both crafts and snare-trapping and fishing, but is recognized for her prospects of becoming a spiritual leader. Her frequent nemeses include her unruly young brother and another girl who bullies her but has her respect and jealousy over her warrior and hunting skills. Her love for certain elders leads her to learn much about canoe building, clothing making, meat and fish drying, vision quests, and various rituals. The �Game of Silence� of the title is a wonderful ritual where kids are rewarded for keeping quiet while the elders convene discussions--the fun of it lies in all the faces and antics the youth go through to make each break silence in laughter or anger. The slice of life portrayed in the tale is a cherishing of what was doomed to largely be lost. The preciousness and fragility of this way of life is a major current in the mind of our hero, as conflicts with white settlers and Army policies are moving toward removal of the tribe�

[Jefferson · Rating 4 out of 5]

“All things change, even us, even you.”

In the beginning of The Game of Silence (2005), Louise Erdrich’s sequel to The Birchbark House (1999), the now nine-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas is counting the things she loves, like her crow Andeg and her family (even her pesky younger brother Pinch), when a group of starving, raggedy refugees show up on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker where she lives with family and friends and relatives (in today’s Wisconsin). After having been made to move by the US government into the lands of the Bwanaag (Dakota/Lakota) people, the refugees were attacked by the Bwanaag and were only able to barely escape in their canoes with the clothes on their backs. One of the refugees is a baby boy whose parents have been killed or lost, so Omakayas is happy when her mother adopts him (calling him Bizheens, or Lynx), as the girl has been missing her baby brother who died in a smallpox epidemic two years ago. Also among the refugees is a proud boy who, having lost his mother, always frowns and bristles when he catches Omakayas looking at him, so she takes to calling him Angry Boy. He will stay with the family Auntie Muskrat.

The Game of Silence is a fine sequel to The Birchbark House! The book features convincing depictions of kids and their thoughts and actions in the context of mid-19th-century Ojibwa daily life through four seasons (cleaning and drying fish, making canoes, beading clothes, setting snares, gathering medicinal mushrooms, weaving mats, playing in the forest or snow, telling stories in winter, preparing a sweat lodge, learning to read the white man’s writing, and more), strong female characters (family friend Old Tallow, cousin Two Strike, grandmother Nokomis, big sister Angeline, mother Yellow Kettle, and Omakayas herself), interesting supporting characters (comedy relief bad boy Pinch, distant but loving father Deydey, and a white girl nicknamed the Break-Apart Girl because her corset pinches her waist almost in two). There’s lots of “simple” pleasure (food, warmth, storytelling), as well as things related to growing up, like observing the adult love between Angeline and Fishtail and feeling an inchoate love between herself and the Angry Boy, going on a dream fast, and having to deal with envy and resentment towards her cousin Two Strike (“When she overheard Nokomis say something admiring about Two Strike, a hollow place formed in Omakayas’s heart”). There is much neat stuff on respecting nature and using everything and thanking the spirits.

There is more in this book than the first concerning white people’s appalling treatment of Native Americans. In the first book, Omakayas’ family and friends are devastated by white people’s smallpox, while in this one they’re devastated by white people’s perfidy in breaking treaties (and then cheating them out of payments and supplies promised in return for moving). The Ojibwa call white people chimookomanag (big knife), because they are always cutting things up and taking them.

There are many moving moments here, including ones between Omakayas and Angeline, Nokomis, and Pinch. The relationship between Omakayas and the Break-Apart Girl is sweet: they cannot understand each other’s language but enjoy sharing food treats and playing on the beach of the lake. Omakayas feels sorry for the white girl because her tight boots pinch her feet so much, while the white girl probably worries about Omakayas not being Christian. And the culture shock experienced by Omakayas when visiting the Break-Apart Girl is neat, as when she observes the white people’s “slave [domesticated] animals,” is disgusted by the idea of drinking animal milk, and is thankful that her friend can’t understand Nokomis say that her “head bucket” (bonnet) would be useful if a bottom were sewn onto it for carrying things.

Kids must love the novel’s affirmation of apparently small, weak beings: the Little Person (memegwisi) who saved Nokomis, the Angry Boy’s real name, Animikiins (Little Thunder), Two Strike’s killing of a bull moose with a single arrow shot, Nokomis’ story about the Little Girl and the Windigoo, and Omakayas, so young and little but so formidable in will and personality and dream/vision/healing ability. When you think that she’s only nine, a moment like the following becomes quite impressive: “Omakayas slit open a fish as long as her arm and plunged her hands into the slippery fish guts.”

Erdrich is an excellent writer, writing vivid details that depict daily Ojibwa activities and develop her characters, as in the following passage:

“Mama and Nokomis were weaving reed pukwe mats outside in the shade of a maple tree. They used long flat matting needles that Deydey fashioned of bone. As he did with everything that he made for his beloved wife and her mother, the needles were extra special, decorated with circles and crosses. The matting needles and the reeds ticked and rustled together, and the sitting mats grew bigger and bigger. While the two women worked, the new little baby, Bizheens, watched each mat develop under their hands. The women laughed, for his baby gaze was as critical and solemn as an old man’s. Just as Mama predicted, he was growing plumper so quickly that he seemed rounder every morning, as though he was adding baby fat in his sleep. They touched his nose, jiggled the tiny dream catcher that dangled just over his forehead. His cradle board hung off a low branch and from time to time Nokomis swung him lightly. When she did, his eyes sparked with alarm first, then pleasure, and he made a sharp little cooing sound of happy surprise. Still, he never laughed.”

Erdrich textures her story with Ojibwa words, for which she provides a Glossary after the story (though it isn’t necessary because her characters usually say the English meanings).

Readers who like authentic, beautiful, humorous, and moving young adult historical fiction (especially about Native American families and girls) should like this book (but should start with the first one, The Birchbark House).

Anna Fields capably reads the audiobook, but Erdrich’s charming illustrations make the book special.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it interesting that Erdrich came back to these people so many years later (in real time, I mean- The Birchbark House was written in 1999). I'm glad she did. I enjoyed this one perhaps more than the first- I think Erdrich does a fabulous job of showing how the changes come to the family without telling us a thing. It's all seen quite authentically through the eyes of Omaykayas, and the baggage I bring to what she sees is emphatically my own.

I love Omaykayas' family. Her interactions with her annoying little brother Pinch are spot-on. I really dig the ebb and flow of emotions that run through this family- Yellow Kettle boils over with a certain regularity, and everyone copes. DeyDey vanishes and reappears, and it's just the way things are.

My own childhood was steeped in Manifest Destiny and the Little House books. I wish I'd had these books instead. Though I'd probably have colored my face with charcoal and wandered off into the woods for a week.

[Caroline Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

o Summary: This book talks about a little girl name Omakayas who is a native american. She loves the life she lives and then one day realizes that it can all be taken away from her. The white people come and try to take over her tribes land and she is scared of what is to come.
o Grade level: 5th
o Appropriate classroom use: When learning about all the things that happened to the native americans. This can be read in a reading class at the same time that they are learning about native americans in their history class.
o Individual students who might benefit from reading: students who are unaware of the things that native americans went through
o Small group use: Student can talk about how they would have felt if they were the little girl in the book.
o Whole class use: Will read at the same time that history is teaching a similar lesson and test over comprehension of the book as a whole.
o Related books in genre/subject or content area:Crossing Bok Chitto
o Multimedia connections available: None of this book

[Carolynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omakayas begins to learn her strengths and abilities as Nokomis (her grandmother) teaches her about healing plants, and she begins to have prophetic dreams. The most important dream is one in which she sees her family leaving their beloved Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker to try to find living space in the lands occupied by the Dakota Indians. On this journey, the Game of Silence becomes a matter of life or death. This is a fitting sequel to Erdrich's _The Birchbark House_. Fans of the Little House books will probably enjoy these books told from the Anishabe (Ojibwe) point of view.

[Brenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought the first book in this series for my 10 year old daughter. One day she left it in the bathroom and I happened to pick it up. Once in hand, I could scarcely put it back down. I loved how true-to-life these stories are. Unlike many children's books about Native American life, the author doesn't portray it as one long camping trip. She doesn't tiptoe around the hardships they encountered. As much as I don't want to ache and cry over the ordeals they suffered, the realism of this story is part of it's beauty. It is the perfect balance of history and fiction. It is a perfect glimpse into what life was like for them, seen through the eyes of a child's experiences and emotions.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Middle Grade chapter book, #2 in the Birchbark House series, set in upper mid-west in 1850. Omakayas and her sometimes annoying brother play the game of silence to see who can be quiet the longest. During a year of much turmoil for her community, they understand they must leave their home on an island in Lake Superior and move further west due to encroachment of the white settlers. The game turns into a survival mode.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have decided, as the year is winding down, that I think this book is my favorite of the year. Was it amazing? I wouldn't describe it that way but I had to give it 5 stars because I know that the story will be with me forever. I loved the honest characterization of family life. the artistic imagery in the writing and the "holy stories" the elders slipped into this story of life of the native Anishinabe people in Western Great Lakes region of 1849.

The Game of Silence is the sequel to "The Birchbark House" and the second book in Louise Erdrich's "children's" series. Erdrich's writing is so sensitive and beautiful that it is akin to poetry....and adults would get as much joy, and learn too, by reading the series. I wondered about the title and was surprised when I realized it's significance. There is a map of their yearly travels and a glossary of Ojibwe terms. The author uses Ojibwa words often, usually followed with it’s English translation. The Ojibwa did not have a written language so terms have been spelled out phonetically. The author goes into this a bit when Omakayas and Angeline are learning the English alphabet. I'm anxious to read the rest of the series.

I'm glad I read this book before beginning to read Robin Kimmerer's newest book, The Serviceberry. It and The Birchbark House books make a case for "moving in an annual cycle through their homelands to where the foods are ready." Kimmerer explains, "Instead of changing the land to suit their convenience, they changed themselves. Eating with the seasons is a way of honoring abundance." Kimmerer and Erdrich, are both members of the Anishinabeg people and both know the importance of gratefulness and reciprocity that their ancestors taught them. They pass it on to their children and grandchildren and we are fortunate that they are able to write with such confidence and clarity so that we and our children will learn these ways of harmonious living too. Meegwech, thank you.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this, the second book in Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House series for young readers, for the same reasons I liked the first book: it offers a charming and accessible view of 19th-century Anishinabe (Ojibwa) culture during the era when the Ojibwe people were being forced to move westward from their ancestral homes on Lake Superior. The book continues the story of Omakayas, a couple of years after the first book. As the book begins, Omakayas’s community learns that the U.S. government has reneged on their treaty and is claiming the Ojibwe land. A year passes as men spread in four directions to confirm this information, but—and for anyone with even a smattering of knowledge of American history, this is hardly a spoiler—in the end the bad news is confirmed.

During that intervening period, Omakayas goes through several different types of rites of passage, some informal, others traditional. She matures and develops further as a healer and visionary. Once again, we experience various aspects of Anishinabe daily life and get a feeling for what will be lost in the diaspora: “Nokomis’s [Okakaya’s grandmother] garden was very old. She had inherited it from her mother, who had inherited it from hers. The earth had grown rich from generations of careful replenishment. . . . But the garden was more than the space it occupied. Its seeds, too, had been handed down for many generations.” “If they ever had to leave, Omakayas felt, her heart might fall right out of her body to lie forever on the ground it loved.”

The book is very sad, but, being a book for children, also full of hope. I should delay less to get to the third book in the series than it took me to get to the second.

Reading challenges:

OSU Summer BINGO: a book by or about indigenous people.

[Megan Willome · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Game of Silence Louise Erdrich

It was on a returns cart at the library that I discovered Louise Erdrich’s middle-grade Birchbark House series, and this month I read book 2, "The Game of Silence." In 2006 this book won the Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction for young people. This book shows what happens when Omakayas and her family learn the U.S. government is removing them from the place they’ve always called home. Early in the book the children are playing the game of silence so the grownups can discuss what to do in changing times. At the end of the book they are playing the game in an entirely different way:

“Nokomis sang, in a very low voice, the song that introduced the game of silence. But this time there were no prizes. This time there would be no laughter if some child mistakenly spoke. The game was very different now and everyone knew it … for they all understood, even Pinch, that the game of silence was now a game of life and death.”

Louise Erdrich is a poet, a novelist, and a bookstore owner, and she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021, as well as many other awards.

I've since read the entire Birchbark House series, and it is so, so good. For anyone who is a fan of the Little House series but has not read the story from Indigenous perspective—get thee to a library!

Through a quirk in my library’s holdings, I read this series in reverse order, making the first book, The Birchbark House, my last read. I think it might be my favorite. I’ve mentioned that Erdrich has done it all, writing-wise, but I failed to mention that she also drew the pictures for this series, and they are as warm and inviting as Garth Williams’ illustrations of the Little House books. If that doesn’t convince you, then read this book for the harrowing description of smallpox.