CHICKADEE, Erdrich's next book in BIRCHBARK HOUSE series

Back in May, Louise Erdrich blogged about Chickadee, the next book in the Birchbark House series. In it, Erdrich writes, Omakayas and her family have moved onto the Great Plains:

I realized that for the sake of this book series we had to move there around 1866.  This is a fascinating year for all sorts of reasons, but for the main character, Chickadee, it is a year of unusual adventure.   Some odd things happen to Chickadee.  He challenges a man named Skunk.  He is kidnapped by two brutish louts who want a servant.  He learns to cook a wretched concoction called bouyah.  Chickadee runs away from well meaning but heartless missionaries.  He learns to survive completely alone in the woods helped by his namesake, the chickadee, who teaches him a song that can heal.  There is lots more, including a visit to Saint Paul, the first city he has ever seen, and composed at the time of shacks, pubs, treeless mansions, and lots of trading companies.  

I'm definitely intrigued. In comments, Erdrich says the book will be out in November of 2012. In the meantime, you might want to get the first three and read (or reread) them. Consider getting signed paperback copies from Erdrich's store, Birchbark Books.

The Birckbark House 

The Game of Silence
 

The Porcupine Year

Erdrich's PORCUPINE YEAR in SLJ's "Battle of the (Kids') Books"

School Library Journal launched their first annual "Battle of the (Kids') Books" today. Among the contenders for "the Baddest Book of Them All" is Louise Erdrich's The Porcupine Year. The judges selected sixteen books they deem "the very best" published in 2008.

I'm not at all sure how this will work. Take a look at the bracket. Porcupine Year is matched up with The Hunger Games.

NOTE: Hunger Games is not about King Arthur as previously said here. That was an error on my part, pointed out in a comment (below). Hunger Games is "a gripping story set in a postapocalyptic world where a replacement for the United States demands a tribute from each of its territories: two children to be used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death" according to the Publisher's Weekly review.

According to info at SLJ, the pairings are random. Forgive my lack of sports knowledge. Is that how the Sweet Sixteen is done? Random?

So... in that bracket, it looks like author Ellen Wittlinger will choose between Porcupine Year and The Hunger Games. Reading through the blogosphere, there's a lot of cheering going on for this Battle of the (Kids') Books competition. There is some resistance, too. One blogger writes that the same books are getting more attention, that there are other books that could benefit from attention.

I'm glad Louise's book is included. It is definitely a terrific read. If you want a signed copy, order one from her store, Birchbark Books.

Slapin review of Erdrich's THE PORCUPINE YEAR

[Note: This review may not be used elsewhere without written permission of its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2008 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.]

Erdrich, Louise (Ojibwe), The Porcupine Year, b/w illustrations by the author. HarperCollins, 2008, grades 4-up

It is 1852, and Omakayas, the little girl we have come to know and love, is 12 winters old—“somewhere between a child and a woman—a person ready to test her intelligence, her hungers. A dreamer, who did not yet know her limits. A hunter, like her brother, who was beginning to possess the knowledge of all that moved and breathed. A friend who did not know how far her love might extend…. A girl who’d come to know something of her strength and who wanted challenge, and would get it, in the years of her family’s exile from their original home…”

Her little brother, Pinch (soon to be called “Quill”), has determined (all by himself) that the little gaag, the baby porcupine he’s convinced Omakayas not to kill for soup, has been given to him as his “medicine animal.” In this “porcupine year,” as it will come to be known, the ever-encroaching chimookomanag, the white people, have forced the large extended family to embark on a perilous journey away from their beloved home, the Island of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker. As they travel north toward Lac du Bois to reunite with Mama’s sister’s family, there are hard decisions to make, the enemy Bwaanag (Dakota) to avoid, raging fires to escape, lost chimookomanag children to take care of, treachery that leaves them near starvation, and the heroic death of a tough-as-leather old woman whom Omakayas had thought was “unkillable.”

This porcupine year is indeed challenging, and another writer might have mired this book in tragedy and unrelenting sorrow. But Erdrich does not abide maudlin drama: here, children can be silly, parents can overreact, grandparents can allow space to learn, and baby porcupines (especially those destined for soup) can be really, really cute.

Omakayas is a loved and treasured member of her family, growing into a strong young woman with a clear mind and a heart open to all that awaits her. She knows that nothing will ever take the place of her original home, but she will learn to love the new place her family now inhabits: land, culture and community are still intact. The Porcupine Year, as its predecessors, The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence, will resonate with young readers long after the last page has been turned.—Beverly Slapin

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Note from Debbie: If you've got a choice, get Erdrich's books from Oyate, a non-profit organization that does a lot of terrific work that benefits all children.

Louise Erdrich's THE PORCUPINE YEAR

Today, Elizabeth Bird (a blogger at School Library Journal), posted her review of Louise Erdrich's The Porcupine Year. It is Erdrich's third book in a series that began with The Birchbark House.

Bird clearly loves the book. I don't know if she posts a live countdown for every book she reviews, but there is one there for the moment when The Porcupine Year hits the shelves on September 2nd.

Earlier this year I listened to Erdrich read from her new novel, The Plague of Doves. It came out in April and is in its third printing. The story she tells is based on the lynching of three American Indians in 1897 in North Dakota. At the 2006 New Yorker Festival she read aloud the story "The Plague of Doves" that would become the novel. If you want to hear that reading, click here.

I bring up her reading here because today, months after I heard her read, those voices are still with me. A gifted writer, she is also an outstanding reader. I'd love to hear her read aloud The Porcupine Year! Like Elizabeth, I was taken with the dialog.

And, as with her first book, Erdrich gives us an honest portrayal of peoples in conflict. In her books, there is none of the savage melodrama that Wilder uses in her series. The world might be a better place if we replaced every copy of Wilder's Little House on the Prairie with Erdrich's series. In Erdrich, children see human and humane, fully developed Native characters whose culture is in conflict with those who want what they have. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.