Birchbark House

In the first of a cycle of novels partly based on her own family history, Erdrich offers a compelling and original saga, told from the point of view of a young Ojibwa girl on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.

This is a story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, living on an island in Lake Superior around 1847. Louise Erdrich is reversing the narrative perspective used in most children's stories about nineteenth-century Native Americans. Instead of looking out at 'them' as dangers or curiosities, Erdrich, drawing on her family's history, wants to tell about 'us,' from the inside.