The Game of Silence

by Louise Erdrich

Book Overview

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, The Game of Silence is the second novel in the critically acclaimed Birchbark House series by New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich. This middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 5 to 6, especially during homeschooling. It's a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064410293
• ISBN13: 9780064410298
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

A way of life

Omakakeyens. A young girl's name. A name that is a signpost that you are entering a way of life far from your own. Her days are filled with her family, their way of life within the pattern of the seasons, a relationship to all living and growing things around them. This is the 2nd of what is now 3 books. First, Birchbark House where we first read of Omakakeyens, I think about 6 or 7 years old, and her Ojibwa family at the turn of the century. This book follows as she grows up in northern Minnesota, with the just released Porcupine Years as the story continues. They are filled with love and humor; you can put them down but you don't want to. I have all three to give my granddaughter, but not until I've read them. Louise Erdrich gives sentences, paragraphs, that take my breath away. Her books are true treasures, deserving of all the awards they have received.

More Please!

the continuing saga of omakayas and her family draws you in and keeps you close. Several of my 5th graders read the book together and immediately asked to read the sequel. When told that it hadn't yet been published, they were dashed, and anxoius for its release. I find it poetic and beautiful, and they are hooked by the story. A teacher's dream...

The rest is silence

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 appeari

A Children's Classic That Adults Will Also Enjoy

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.

A portrait of a family and culture on the brink of change

When Louise Erdrich's THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE was published in 1999, it was widely hailed as an alternative to the beloved "Little House" series, exploring roughly the same time period and same geographical area as that covered by Laura Ingalls Wilder's novels. Much like the "Little House" books, THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE documented the traditions, celebrations, joys, and sorrows of an ordinary family. In Erdrich's novel, though, this family is part of an Ojibwe community rather than a group of white pioneers. Readers who came to know Omakayas, the heroine of THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE, have been waiting a long time to find out what happens next to this vibrant, likeable character and her family. The good news is that the sequel, THE GAME OF SILENCE, is finally here, and it was definitely worth waiting for. THE GAME OF SILENCE opens with a dramatic scene that sets the theme of much of the rest of the novel. Omakayas's small community is shocked by the arrival of strangers, other native peoples who have been displaced by chimookomanag, or white people. Frightened, half-starved and angry, the survivors become part of Omakayas's life, and their harrowing stories instill fear and anxiety into everyone's hearts. Could they be the next to lose their homes? Erdrich writes, "They would all fear to lose something huge, something so important that they never even knew that they had it in the first place. Who questions the earth, the ground beneath your feet? They had always accepted it --- always here, always solid. That something was home." Omakayas worries about her home, too. She loves her family and the land where they live. She thinks, "If they ever had to leave, ...her heart might fall right out of her body to lie forever on the ground it loved." As the year wears on, though, Omakayas is troubled more and more by dreams, almost visions, that seem to ask her to do something she's not yet ready for. Can she ignore what seems to be her gift? Before the end of the novel, she must face her fears in order to lead her family on to the next chapter of their lives. Omakayas is still the sensitive, lively, sometimes impulsive girl of THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE, but in this novel she grows up quickly. Although there are some big themes explored in THE GAME OF SILENCE, Erdrich still enriches her novel with the small details of everyday life that also made THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE so compelling. Over the course of a year, the patterns of Omakayas's life play out --- harvesting rice, smoking fish, telling stories, sledding on the snow, preparing for a wedding. These ordinary tasks are described in loving detail, enabling readers to gain a fuller picture of a time, a place, and a way of life. In addition, Erdrich offers a comprehensive glossary of Ojibwe terms and dozens of lovely pencil illustrations of the characters and their natural surroundings. What emerges is a portrait of a family --- and a culture --- on the brink of change. Let's hope we don't have to wait as long again to