A review by bluestjuice
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich

4.0

We read this as one of the final literature choices for the level 2 Torchlight program, and it served as my first introduction to Erdrich's work. To be honest, I was not entirely sold at first - I felt that it started off slow and that the characterizations and perhaps the plot were going to be perhaps too simplistic and too oriented towards younger readers to be engaging to me, or even to my ten-year-old. I appreciated the clearly well-researched and respectful portrayal of Ojibwe peoples that the book represented, but feared it was perhaps the health food of literature - nourishing and wholesome but a bit bland and unexciting. I turned out to be quite wrong, however. If anything, I don't think my fourth-grader understood the layers of symbolism and cultural relevance as deeply as I would have liked her to. There is interesting anthropological history here but also a moving and emotional story, seen through the eyes of a young girl but no less deeply felt for that. Erdrich portrays people and beliefs that may be quite unlike those of the reader yet without a sense of exoticism that can often creep into historical fiction featuring indigenous peoples. It's excellent writing and a very worthwhile addition to a young reader's canon.