The Birchbark House

The Birchbark House

• Genre: Fiction; middle-grade historical
• Originally Published: 1999
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 970L; grades 3-7
• Structure/Length: 14 chapters; approx. 223 pages; approx. 5 hours, 26 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Seven-year-old Omakayas, a young Anishinabe girl, helps nurse her family through a smallpox outbreak that shatters the rhythm of her family’s life. After the outbreak, Omakayas discovers her true calling.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Disease and hunger; genocide; death of an infant; lasting grief

Louise Erdrich, Author

• Bio: Born in 1954 in Minnesota; raised in North Dakota, where both parents taught at an Indian Affairs Boarding School; attended Dartmouth College and Johns Hopkins University; member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa; treats many issues involving Indigenous communities and their struggles in her works, though some works represent other cultures and genres; won the 2012 National Book Award for The Round House, the 2015 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Night Watchman; has also published poetry, short fiction, and children’s fiction (notably, The Birchbark House)
• Other Works: Love Medicine (1984); The Beet Queen (1986); The Bingo Palace (1994); The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year (nonfiction, 1995); The Birchbark House (1999); The Sentence (2021)
• Awards: National Book Award Finalist (1999); Western Heritage Award (2000); American Indian Youth Literature Award (2006)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Anishinabe Culture and White Settlement
• Anishinabe Spirituality
• Community and Generosity
• Women’s Work and Non-Conformity

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the cultural and historical contexts that influence the novel’s plot and character development.
• Study paired texts and other brief resources to make connections to the text’s theme of Anishinabe Culture and White Settlement.
• Like the Anishinabe, construct a timeline of family rituals by season.
• Analyze and evaluate plot, setting, character, and theme to draw conclusions and make inferences regarding Anishinabe Culture and White Settlement, Anishinabe Spirituality, Women’s Work and Non-Conformity, and Community and Generosity.