Hazel Rochman (Booklist, April 1, 1999 (Vol. 95, No. 15))
This is a multi-book review. See also the title No Man's Land. Why has no one written this story before? Why are there so few good children's books about the people displaced by the little house in the big woods? In the first of a cycle of novels set at the time of the Laura Ingalls Wilder classics, Erdrich makes us imagine what it was like for an Ojibwa Indian child when the chimookoman (non-Indian white people) were opening up the land. Omakayas is eight years old in 1847, living on an island in Lake Superior. The technical detail may be too much for readers who want more action--there's a lot about what the Ojibwa ate on the island through the seasons, how they grew it and gathered it and cooked it, what they wore and how they made it, how they built the birchbark house, step by step--but Little House fans will enjoy that. And Erdrich is not reverential about the work: Omakayas is bored with the endless scraping and rubbing of hides; what she loves are the yearly traditions, such as the maple sugaring in the spring, the storytelling in the winter night. The characters are wonderfully individualized, humane and funny: Omakayas is jealous of her beautiful, older sister, impatient with her obnoxious brother, fiercely attached to her baby brother, excited and also tense when her half-French father is home from his work in the fur trade. She has a special bond with Old Tallow, a rugged, solitary, bear-hunting woman who is afraid of nothing. Erdrich's occasional small, detailed portraits (many resemble her) are drawn from photographs; they express the warm dailiness of Omakayas' world. There is a real plot from the very first devastating paragraph: "The only person left alive on the island was a baby girl . . . Smallpox had killed them all." Who is the baby girl? The mystery comes full circle at the end of the book. The whites are on the edge of the story, but they are there, pushing closer, more of them on the island every day, wanting the Ojibwa to leave. Then, just casually, quietly, in the middle of a paragraph in a middle chapter called "The Visitor," a thin, feverish French voyageur comes to spend the night in the village. He dies of smallpox. In the subsequent epidemic Omakayas loses her beloved baby brother and her best friend. The sorrow nearly overcomes her. Little House readers will discover a new world, a different version of a story they thought they knew. Category: Older Readers. 1999, Hyperion, $14.99 and $15.49. Gr. 4-8.

Susan Hepler, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
Tender pencil illustrations by the author and a story of how traditional Ojibway life might have been for a little girl in 1847 on an island in Lake Superior give this book a "Little House in the Big Woods" feeling. While subjects include seasonal activities, a trickster pet crow, and children's games, Erdrich also includes smallpox and the undercurrent of white intentions upon the Native American community, as well. 1999, Hyperion, $14.99. Ages 7 to 11.

Sharon Salluzzo (Children's Literature)
Omakayas, a young girl of seven winters, was impatient for her front teeth to grow, longed to be as perfect as her older sister Angeline, disliked her brother Little Pinch, but loved the baby Neewo. She did not look forward to the difficult task of tanning a moose hide, although she knew it had to be done. As we follow her through the year, we discover along with her how simple life was that spring. Lack of food during the winter, devastation by smallpox, and the westward movement of the white folk were spelling impending doom to their lifestyle. Finally she would hear a fantastic story of her survival at age two from Old Tallow, a strange woman who treated her in a special way. The reader is immersed in the life of the Ojibwa in the mid-nineteenth century Lake Superior region: their lifestyle, survival techniques, and the changes occurring with the arrival of the white man. The characters and their relationships are well drawn. According to the author's note in the front, this is the first of several books that will trace her family history. I eagerly await the next one. 1999, Hyperion, $14.99. Ages 8 to 12.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 2000)
A novel that moves with grace and certainty through the seasons ties the cycle of life, death, and renewal to events in the life of a seven-year-old Objiwa girl and her family during the mid-19th century. It is a time when the continued advance of white traders and settlers into lands once inhabited exclusively by Native peoples is bringing change to the lives of the Ojibwa, including those on the Lake Superior island (today know as Madeleine Island) where Omakayas and family live. Still, Omakayas's world is defined not by changes she is too young to understand but by the daily and seasonal details of life with her mother, father, grandmother, sister and brothers; by her childlike delight in a day unexpectedly free from dreaded chores, an afternoon spent watching her adored baby brother, or the always joyous arrival home of her father from a long fur trading expedition. At the same time, Omakayas's awareness of her spiritual connection to the natural world around her is beginning to mature, seeded by the details of her daily life and nurtured by her grandmother. When two white traders who arrive in the middle of winter carry the devastation of smallpox into her village, Omakayas is physically untouched by the deadly outbreak that follows, but she is emotionally devastated by the magnitude of her loss in its wake--a loss that reaches back farther than she knew. Louise Erdrich's moving historical novel is an important chronicle of Ojibwa culture and U.S and American Indian history in the context of an appealing, lyrically told story that never strays from a child's understanding of grief and heartbreak, as well as joy and wonder. CCBC categories: Fiction for Children. 1999, Hyperion, 235 pages, $15.49. Ages 8-12.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1999)
With this volume, Erdrich (Grandmother's Pigeon, 1996, etc.) launches her cycle of novels about a 19th-century Ojibwa family, covering in vivid detail their everyday life as they move through the seasons of one year on an island on Lake Superior. A baby girl crawls among the bodies of her family, dead from smallpox. After that stinging beginning, an unexpectedly enjoyable story follows, replete with believable characterizations, humor, family love, and misadventures. Omakayas, now seven, adores baby brother Neewo, detests rambunctious five-year-old brother Pinch, and worships her beautiful teenage sister, Angeline. Omakayas works and plays through the summer and fall, learning the ways of her people; she has a frightful adventure with bears and adopts a young raven as a pet. But in winter smallpox again affects her life: Neewo dies, and Angeline is scarred for life. Omakayas cannot find her way back to happiness until an odd old woman tells her the troth of her past, in a novel that is by turns charming, suspenseful, and funny, and always bursting with life. 1999, Hyperion, $14.99; PLB $15.49. © 1999 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Janice M. Del Negro (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July/August 1999 (Vol. 52, No. 11))
Seven-year-old Omakayas (which means “Little Frog”) and her family follow the ways of their people, the Anishinabe, on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker in Lake Superior. On the surface, the story of Omakayas is the story of any girl growing up: she envies her beautiful older sister, adores her father, is exasperated by her five-year-old brother, tries to get out of hated chores, and wonders about her future. The deeper story of the Anishinabe and their struggles to maintain their way of life is the richly textured infrastructure of this deceptively simple, lyrically written novel. Erdrich divides Omakayas’ story into four seasons, beginning with the summer of 1847 and the family’s move from their winter cottage to their summer birchbark house. As the seasons pass, Omakayas takes care of her adored baby brother, Neewo, and learns herb lore from her grandmother; she meets two bear cubs and their mother and discovers her calling as a healer; she cares for her family when smallpox breaks out, and she mourns the death of Neewo and others in their community. The details of everyday life are unobtrusively and skillfully woven into the text; the encroachment of white settlers into Indian land has clearly had impact but that encroachment is still held off by geographic isolation and deliberate choice. The relationships among the family members, between the family and their community, and between the community and the land come through clearly here in an emotionally involving style that will draw readers into the world and worldview of Omakayas and her family. The acknowledgments state that this novel, which provides a cultural counterpoint to the Little House titles, is the first in a series retracing Erdrich’s own family history. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: *R -- Denotes books of special distinction. (c) Copyright 1999, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1999, Hyperion, 192p, $15.49 and $14.99. Grades 4-8.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 1999)
Focusing on seven-year-old Omakayas, Erdrich paints a detailed portrait of Ojibwa life in the mid-nineteenth century. Along with descriptions of household tasks and customs, Erdrich crafts images of tender beauty while weaving Ojibwa words seamlessly into the text. Her gentle spot art throughout complements this first of several projected stories that will "attempt to retrace [her] own family's history." Category: Intermediate Fiction. 1999, Hyperion, 235pp, $14.99, $15.49. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Sandra Thompson (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 12, No. 2))
Omakayas, an Ojibwa girl, lives on an island in Lake Superior with her tribe in 1847. The events of her life in a year's time give a reader a wonderful insight into the Native American lifestyle. From building summer birchbark homes to maple-sugaring time filled Omakayas's life, when she wasn't taking care of baby Neewo. White man's smallpox hits the tribe's winter camp with shattering blows. This is an excellent story, written by an author who is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwa. Fiction, Highly Recommended. Grades 5-7. 1999, Hyperion Books, 244p, $15.99. Ages 10 to 13.