Chickadee

Starred review from July 1, 2012
Erdrich continues the saga of Omakayas and her family, who now embark in 1866 on a life-changing search that takes them from Minnesota's North Woods to the Great Plains in this fourth book of The Birchbark House Series. Omakayas is now a young mother with lively 8-year-old twins named Chickadee and Makoons. When the tribe's bully, Zhigaag, calls Chickadee a "weakling" who's "scrawny like his namesake," grandmother Nokomis reminds him that "[s]mall things have great power." After Makoons tricks Zhigaag, his oafish sons avenge their father by hijacking Chickadee to the Red River Valley. Chickadee's family searches desperately until they reach Pembina on the Great Plains. Meanwhile, resourceful Chickadee escapes and survives with help from his wee namesake until he runs into his Uncle Quill driving an ox cart of furs to sell in St. Paul. Quill and Chickadee travel with fellow traders on the Red River ox cart trail, arriving in Pembina to find Makoons seriously ill. Chickadee and Makoons extend Omakaya's story to the next generation as her Ojibwe family transitions from its native woods culture to life on the plains. Realistic black-and-white spot art provides snapshots of Chickadee's adventures. A beautifully evolving story of an indigenous American family. (map; glossary & pronunciation guide of Ojibwe terms) (Historical fiction. 8-12)

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Starred review from September 1, 2012

Gr 4-8-Effortlessly and beautifully, Erdrich continues her story about an Ojibwe family in northern Minnesota in the mid 1800s. The series began with Omakayas's girlhood and now shifts to the lives of her sons. In 1866, quiet Chickadee and mischievous Makoons are inseparable eight-year-old twins, cherished by their extended family. When they gather with other Ojibwe to make maple sugar, a cruel older man mocks Chickadee for his small size and namesake. Makoons defends his brother's honor by playing a revengeful prank on the man, which humiliates and incenses him. His thick-headed, muscle-bound sons vow revenge and kidnap Chickadee, carrying him away and forcing him to serve their bewildering oafish demands. His family is heartbroken and pursues the captors while Makoons becomes listless and ill. Chickadee eventually escapes, in time reuniting with a traveling uncle, who leads the way back to his family. Through many harrowing adventures, the child is aided and encouraged by his avian namesake, who teaches him that small things have great power. Erdrich's storytelling is masterful. All of the characters, even minor ones, are believable and well developed, and small pencil drawings add to the story's charm. The northern Minnesota setting is vividly described, and information about Ojibwe life and culture is seamlessly woven into every page. Readers will be more than happy to welcome little Chickadee into their hearts.-Lisa Crandall, Capital Area District Library, Holt, MI

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
Grades 4-7 In the fourth book in Erdrich's award-winning Birchbark House series, the focus moves to a new generation. In 1866, when Omakayas' son, Chickadee, eight, is kidnapped, his twin, Makoons, and his family take off across the cold, snowy Great Plains to find Chickadee, who escapes his captors and then encounters white English settlers, including a kind priest who wants to save Chickadee's soul, and racist Christians, who view Indians as pagan filthy savages. Best for those familiar with the series, the story includes a huge, multigenerational cast of characters, and some readers may have trouble keeping track of who's who. As always, the focus is on the way-of-life details as much as the adventure and on the daily, logistical drama of how the family moves from all that they have known to the Great Plains. Most affecting are the descriptions of Makoons' loneliness without his brother; even in the crowded cabin, There was empty space that could be filled only by Chickadee. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Erdrich's literary clout makes any new release a notable event, and the Birchbark House series has a large and growing following.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013
In this fourth installment, eight-year-old Chickadee's abduction from the Ojibwe camp in the deep woods initiates a string of gripping adventures for the boy and a change to his family's way of life. Every detail anticipates readers' interest; they'll absorb the history lesson almost by osmosis. Chickadee is a most sympathetic character--small in stature but big in heart. A map is appended. Glos.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2012
If the Birchbark House series is the Native American counterpart to Wilder's Little House, this fourth installment might be considered Erdrich's Little Town on the Prairie (rev. 1/42). Set a generation after the first three books, Chickadee centers on the now-adult Omakayas's eight-year-old twin sons, Chickadee and Makoons. When Chickadee is abducted from the Ojibwe camp in the deep woods, it not only initiates a string of gripping adventures for the boy but also signals the beginning of a change to his family's way of life: in searching for him they establish themselves in a village on the Great Plains, abandoning the great northern forests and their traditional nomadic existence. Readers will absorb the history lesson almost by osmosis; their full attention will be riveted on the story, whether it's Chickadee escaping his (ultimately buffoonish) captors or riding with his uncle Quill in an oxcart train bound for Saint Paul or surviving a vicious mosquito attack ("millions and millions of mosquitoes landed on the flesh of every living being in the oxcart train") or calmly picking baby snakes off the sleeping, phobic Quill. Every detail anticipates readers' interest. Chickadee himself is a most sympathetic character -- small in stature but big in heart, like his namesake; and though it's mostly his story, interspersed scenes depicting the left-behind Makoons's grief make the brothers' reunion at the end all the sweeter. A map, historical prologue, and glossary of Ojibwe terms are appended. martha v. parravano

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)