The Game of Silence [Library Binding]

No one becomes a children's librarian in the hopes of someday striking it rich. We all do it for our separate, twisted, obscure little reasons that probably have their roots somewhere in our youth. I did it partly because I realized that I wasn't cut out to be an archival librarian (the moment of inspiration came when my husband pointed out that I'd set my coffee cup down on my conservation textbook) and partly for two little words: readers advisory. I love recommending good books to good readers. I love recommending good books to bad readers. I love recommending good books period. And if I were to calculate the most frequently cited question I get on the children's room floor it might be, "My child loves the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. What else can you recommend?". Now until now my instinct was to grab "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich and thrust it into the waiting patron's arms. Now, unfortunately, I have a choice to make. "The Birchbark House" is good, yes. But its sequel, "The Game of Silence" is even better. How can I go about not recommending the sequel before its predecessor? I can't. Just the same, "The Game of Silence" does not absolutely require that "The Birchbark House" be read in order to understand the following story. It stands on its own beautifully and it shouldn't be any wonder to anyone that it garnered itself the 2006 Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction. It undoubtedly deserved it.

Having survived the smallpox plague of 1847, Omakayas still mourns the loss of her little baby brother, but keeps her spirit strong. Good thing too. A band of raggedy homeless people have arrived in the girl's Ojibwe camp and her good tribe takes them in immediately. Amongst the people is a baby, its mother long gone, and the perfect remedy for the hole in Omakayas's family's heart. Word has reached the tribe that the white settlers are forcing all Native Americans to move farther west despite a treaty made years ago. To verify the truth behind this rumor and to see whether it was the whites who broke their word or the Natives, four men are sent from the camp to discover the truth. In the time that it takes the men to get back (the span of one year) we watch Omakayas's adventures and traditions. As time goes one, however, it becomes clear that change is imminent and that Omakayas must allow herself to go into the woods to seek the spirits that have given her so much knowledge in the past. What she sees may make all the difference in how she lives the rest of her life.

Though I'd enjoyed "The Birchbark House" I was reluctant to read its sequel immediately. No matter how well read a children's librarian might be, it's very difficult to voluntarily read books in a genre that you yourself avoided like the plague as a child. In my case, historical fiction. I decided not to read this book simply because I'd read the first one and probably knew exactly what to expect with this sequel. Then it started appearing on all the Best Books of the Year lists. And then Roger Sutton (editor of Horn Book Magazine) started singing its praises to the skies. About the time people started murmuring the words "Newbery" and "Game of Silence" in the same breath I knew I had to give in and read it. Thank God for that. Having honed her skills already on everything from picture books to adult novels, Erdrich has sketched out a perfect tale. Characters grow and change and know one another better by the story's end.

I've always had a weakness for Erdrich's pencil illustrations, thinking them as essential a complement to her stories as Garth Williams's were to the "Little House" books. In this story Erdrich uses them to their fullest effect. Pinch, Omakayas's mischievous little sprite of a brother, is rendered here in all his round spiky-haired cheerfulness. Though he annoys those he loves past all endurance, you're just as enamored of the little guy as his doting mother and frustrated (but amused) siblings. There was one picture in the batch that I found a mite bit confusing, of course. In the chapter "Fish Soup" we see a picture of Twilight (Omakayas's cousin) gutting a fish with her hair in two pigtails above her head. Oddly enough, she seems to be wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt of a particularly modern design. It's a cute little image but if the shirt isn't made of 100% cotton then Erdrich probably should have made that clearer. As it stands it seems like a very odd discrepancy in the midst of otherwise historically accurate pictures.

In every novel there's an odd little moment here or a word there that strikes the reader as funny. For me it was the moment when Old Tallow, the warrior woman who hunts with a pack of trained dogs at her side, says that when she fell down a cliff she, "pitched ears over butt all the way to the bottom". Butt? Interesting word choice there. Still, it gets the message across. And for every little quirk in the tale there are three times as many small instances of writing perfection. As Old Tallow has a rotted finger chopped off and scalded closed (it sounds more violent than it actually plays out) Omakayas sees only a single tear fall from the woman's eye. Later, the girl, "wished she'd caught that tear. It was rare. Probably, it was the only tear Old Tallow had ever shed". Even better are sections that discuss Pinch's fish catching skills. Though his traps look like beavers' nests and his decoy the oddest shaped fish anyone has ever seen, time and again Pinch catches more fishies than anyone else. "The fish that Pinch carved was apparently the most delicious-looking fish in the world". In this way Erdrich weaves that ever necessary thread of loving humor into her books. You can be meaningful all day and bore children to tears or you can dot the text with funny and very real moments of childhood and end up with an even better book. Erdritch opts for the latter.

Here's what I love about the stories of Omakayas. They're actually interesting to kids. There are great snowball fights, snow houses, contests, and examples of kids playing in realistic ways. At the same time they're historically accurate and though they never downplay the horror of colonization, neither do they wallow in misery and woe. These books show characters proud of their ancestry who are precious to their readers because they seem so very real. People complain all the time about how depressing good books are to kids sometimes (ala "The Bridge to Terebithia"). Fine. Let's have them all read "The Game of Silence" in school instead. You'd be hard pressed to find a book half as wise and a quarter as amusing. I could probably go on and on and on about it (which is a relief after reviewing some books that take all my energy to find words to describe) but I'll just leave you with the knowledge that this is undoubtedly one of the best books to come out in years and years. A bloody brilliant piece of work.

When it comes to stories of the Ojibwe people, it seems to this reader/listener that Louise Erdich writes not only with her pen but also with her heart. A native of North Dakota, Erdrich is of German-American/Chippewa descent, and she is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. Thus, her novel "The Birchbark House," which introduced young Omakayas, glistened with insight and admiration for characters who lived in the 1850s.

The same may be said of "The Game of Silence," beautifully delivered by voice actress Anna Fields.

Now, of course, Omakayas is older and she has learned a great deal as she goes about her days among her people, all following the shifting seasons. There have been changes: a sister has found someone to love, and Omakayas becomes aware that she possesses a unique gift - her dreams foretell the future.

As the story opens, days are peaceful on a Lake Superior island. The people live in houses made of birchbark during the summer, then as the days grow cooler they prepare for harvest. When winter falls all will leave their birchbark houses for cedar cabins close to a town, LaPointe.

However, the Ojibwe's serenity is interrupted by white men who want them to leave the island, want to push them away from the land they call home.

Intended for young listeners, those in grades 5 through 8, "The Game of Silence" will not only offer them a wealth of historical detail but also a reminder of the beauty and bounty of nature.

- Gail Cooke

Over the years, the focus of Louise Erdrich's writing has been her Indian heritage of the Upper Midwest. Her childhood was shaped by attending a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in North Dakota where her parents taught (mother was of French-Ojibwe descent and father was of German stock). Her early novels ("Love Medicine" --1984 and "Tracks" --1988) told stories of the Chippewa tribe in North Dakota before she wrote of her Ojibwe tribe in Minnesota in fiction ("The Antelope Wife" --1998) and in a travel memoir ("Books And Islands in Ojibwe Country -- 2003).

Now she is writing a multi-volume children's epic of the history of her people as seen by through the eyes of Omakayas, a pre-teen Ojibwe girl growing up in the pre-Civil War Minnesota. The first book of the series, "The Birchbark House" (1999) explored the pre-Eden world (i.e. before the arrival of the white settlers) that was still dangerous, especially with the introduction of smallpox. Now the second novel, "The Game of Silence" continues that history with the coming encroachment of the American government.

Not least among its charms is the expose to the Ojibwe ways/culture/mindset of a day long ago. The pencil drawings by the author give a visual image to a world that will not be familiar to most. The writing is simple but clear, driven by the story of an approaching doom that has yet to arrive. Teenagers and adults will enjoy this story and look forward to future installments of the adventures of Omakayas and her people.