"The Birchbark House"

Erdrich, L. (1999). The birchbark house. New York: HyperionBooks for Children.

Readability Lexile: 970L

Target Audience: Ages 9-11

Setting: The Late 1800's

Theme: A story about family, tradition, and how they live through the seasons

Characters: Omakayas and the Ojibwa People

Summary:  This novel is the story of a year in the life of a young Ojibwa girl (Omakayas) who, over the cycle of four full seasons, comes to a deeper understanding of life, herself, and the relationship between the two. As it chronicles the year's events, the narrative thematically explores the connection between human beings and nature, the effect of whites on indigenous culture, and the necessity of confronting fear.

A group of canoeing fur traders abandons the sole survivor of a smallpox outbreak, a baby girl, because they're afraid of being infected with the disease that killed everybody else in her Ojibwa community. As they leave, however, one of the traders imagines that if anyone would come back to rescue the girl, it would be his strong-willed, fearless wife Tallow. Tallow does come back to rescue the baby, but this is kept a secret until the end of the story.

There are a few illustrations that are not necessarily needed. The author paints a vivid picture that allows the reader to feel as though you have a front row seat as the story unfolds. Details of the daily life of this Ojibwa family, the surrounding community, their struggles, and their ability to overcome are described meticulously. 

Reading this book in the classroom would be an invaluable tool for your students. I would have my students take notes and gather images from the Internet in order to create a PowerPoint presentation to teach the rest of the class about a Native tribe or tribes in a geographical area. As a class we could also talk about reliable sources on the internet and how to avoid including stereotypes and misinformation in their reports. Because the story is historically accurate and portrays the real life occurrences of indigenous people, it meets the requirements of high quality literature set forth by Norton (2011).