The birchbark house

Resource Information

The work The birchbark house represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Yuma County Library District. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The birchbark house

Statement of responsibility

Louise Erdrich with illustrations by the author

Creator

• Erdrich, Louise

Author

• Erdrich, Louise

Illustrator

• Erdrich, Louise

Subject

• Islands -- Fiction
• Islands -- Juvenile fiction
• Ojibwa Indians -- Fiction
• Ojibwa Indians -- Juvenile fiction
• Seasons -- Fiction
• Seasons -- Juvenile fiction
• Superior, Lake -- Juvenile fiction
• Indians of North America -- Superior, Lake, Region -- Fiction
• Indians of North America -- Superior, Lake, Region -- Juvenile fiction

Genre

• Juvenile fiction
• Fiction

Language

eng

Summary

Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. For as long as Omakayas can remember, she and her family have lived on the land her people call the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. Although the chimookoman, white people, encroach more and more on their land, life continues much as it always has. Every summer the family builds a new birchbark house; every fall they go to ricing camp to harvest and feast; they move to the cedar log house before the first snows arrive, and celebrate the end of the long, cold winters at maple-sugaring camp. In between, Omakayas fights with her annoying little brother, Pinch, plays with the adorable baby, Neewo, and tries to be grown-up like her beautiful older sister, Angeline. But the satisfying rhythms of their lives are shattered when a visitor comes to their lodge one winter night, bringing with him an invisible enemy that will change things forever. Set on an island in Lake Superior in 1847, and filled with fascinating details of traditional Ojibwa life, The Birchbark House is a breathtaking novel by one of America's most gifted and original writers

Awards note

• WILLA Award (Women writing the West), YA Fiction, 2000
• National Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Award, 2000
• National Book Award finalist

Cataloging source

TEF

Dewey number

813.54

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

no index present

LC call number

PS3555.R42

LC item number

B57 2002

Literary form

fiction

Target audience

pre adolescent