The Birchbark House

This National Book Award finalist by Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Louise Erdrich is the first installment in a planned nine-book series chronicling one hundred years in the life of one Ojibwe family and includes interior black-and-white artwork done by the author.

She was named Omakakiins, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop.

Omakakiins and her family live on an island in Lake Superior. Though there are growing numbers of white people encroaching on their land, life continues much as it always has. But the satisfying rhythms of their life are shattered when a visitor comes to their lodge one winter night, bringing with him an invisible enemy that will change things forever—but that will eventually lead Omakakiins to discover her calling.