The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars “All things change, even us, even you.” In the beginning of The Game of Silence (2005), Louise Erdrich’s sequel to The Birchbark House (1999), the now nine-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas is counting the things she loves, like her crow Andeg and her family (even her pesky younger brother Pinch), when a group of starving, raggedy refugees show up on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker where she lives with family and friends and relatives (in today’s Wisconsin). After having been made to move by the US government into the lands of the Bwanaag (Dakota/Lakota) people, the refugees were attacked by the Bwanaag and were only able to barely escape in their canoes with the clothes on their backs. One of the refugees is a baby boy whose parents have been killed or lost, so Omakayas is happy when her mother adopts him (calling him Bizheens, or Lynx), as the girl has been missing her baby brother who died in a smallpox epidemic two years ago. Also among the refugees is a proud boy who, having lost his mother, always frowns and bristles when he catches Omakayas looking at him, so she takes to calling him Angry Boy. He will stay with the family Auntie Muskrat. The Game of Silence is a fine sequel to The Birchbark House! The book features convincing depictions of kids and their thoughts and actions in the context of mid-19th-century Ojibwa daily life through four seasons (cleaning and drying fish, making canoes, beading clothes, setting snares, gathering medicinal mushrooms, weaving mats, playing in the forest or snow, telling stories in winter, preparing a sweat lodge, learning to read the white man’s writing, and more), strong female characters (family friend Old Tallow, cousin Two Strike, grandmother Nokomis, big sister Angeline, mother Yellow Kettle, and Omakayas herself), interesting supporting characters (comedy relief bad boy Pinch, distant but loving father Deydey, and a white girl nicknamed the Break-Apart Girl because her corset pinches her waist almost in two). There’s lots of “simple” pleasure (food, warmth, storytelling), as well as things related to growing up, like observing the adult love between Angeline and Fishtail and feeling an inchoate love between herself and the Angry Boy, going on a dream fast, and having to deal with envy and resentment towards her cousin Two Strike (“When she overheard Nokomis say something admiring about Two Strike, a hollow place formed in Omakayas’s heart”). There is much neat stuff on respecting nature and using everything and thanking the spirits. There is more in this book than the first concerning white people’s appalling treatment of Native Americans. In the first book, Omakayas’ family and friends are devastated by white people’s smallpox, while in this one they’re devastated by white people’s perfidy in breaking treaties (and then cheating them out of payments and supplies promised in return for moving). The Ojibwa call white people chimookomanag (big knife), because they are always cutting things up and taking them. There are many moving moments here, including ones between Omakayas and Angeline, Nokomis, and Pinch. The relationship between Omakayas and the Break-Apart Girl is sweet: they cannot understand each other’s language but enjoy sharing food treats and playing on the beach of the lake. Omakayas feels sorry for the white girl because her tight boots pinch her feet so much, while the white girl probably worries about Omakayas not being Christian. And the culture shock experienced by Omakayas when visiting the Break-Apart Girl is neat, as when she observes the white people’s “slave [domesticated] animals,” is disgusted by the idea of drinking animal milk, and is thankful that her friend can’t understand Nokomis say that her “head bucket” (bonnet) would be useful if a bottom were sewn onto it for carrying things. Kids must love the novel’s affirmation of apparently small, weak beings: the Little Person (memegwisi) who saved Nokomis, the Angry Boy’s real name, Animikiins (Little Thunder), Two Strike’s killing of a bull moose with a single arrow shot, Nokomis’ story about the Little Girl and the Windigoo, and Omakayas, so young and little but so formidable in will and personality and dream/vision/healing ability. When you think that she’s only nine, a moment like the following becomes quite impressive: “Omakayas slit open a fish as long as her arm and plunged her hands into the slippery fish guts.” Erdrich is an excellent writer, writing vivid details that depict daily Ojibwa activities and develop her characters, as in the following passage: “Mama and Nokomis were weaving reed pukwe mats outside in the shade of a maple tree. They used long flat matting needles that Deydey fashioned of bone. As he did with everything that he made for his beloved wife and her mother, the needles were extra special, decorated with circles and crosses. The matting needles and the reeds ticked and rustled together, and the sitting mats grew bigger and bigger. While the two women worked, the new little baby, Bizheens, watched each mat develop under their hands. The women laughed, for his baby gaze was as critical and solemn as an old man’s. Just as Mama predicted, he was growing plumper so quickly that he seemed rounder every morning, as though he was adding baby fat in his sleep. They touched his nose, jiggled the tiny dream catcher that dangled just over his forehead. His cradle board hung off a low branch and from time to time Nokomis swung him lightly. When she did, his eyes sparked with alarm first, then pleasure, and he made a sharp little cooing sound of happy surprise. Still, he never laughed.” Erdrich textures her story with Ojibwa words, for which she provides a Glossary after the story (though it isn’t necessary because her characters usually say the English meanings). Readers who like authentic, beautiful, humorous, and moving young adult historical fiction (especially about Native American families and girls) should like this book (but should start with the first one, The Birchbark House). Anna Fields capably reads the audiobook, but Erdrich’s charming illustrations make the book special. View all my reviews
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