Little House by Any Other Name Might Smell Like: Birchbark House

Reading List
Written By Rebecca Grabill

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. Hyperion, 1999.

It’s Little House but from the Native American perspective! I love it.

Erdrich accomplishes a lovely coming of age story with many of the same devices Wilder uses. Incredibly specific detail, a gentle narrative that strays from close 3rd limited to omniscient when it needs to. Family stories scattered throughout.

But Erdrich does more—she allows her protagonist to suffer (she loses her baby brother), and she takes the spirituality of the culture very seriously. Despite the author having these contemporary sensibilities, the book still has the timeless feel that Wilder’s have. Lovely.

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Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

www.rebeccagrabill.com
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