The Game of Silence

Erdrich, Louise. The Game of Silence. New York: HarperCollins. 2005.
ISBN 0-06-441029-3

Summary

The title refers to a game that the children of Omakayas's tribe play when the adults are talking about things that are important and boring. Unfortunately this is a game that they have need of playing a lot as the tribe finds that the U.S. government has lied to them and is driving them out of their land. The story takes place on an island on Lake Superior, and predominately about the simple day to day life of a young girl and her family, but ultimately deals with the push to force the Native Americans west, and the cost to the Native Americans- hunger, starvation, death, orphans being taken in by other families. It deals with the best and worst parts of human nature. It teaches little life lessons that children learn along the way. It displays the life of a young girl as she changes through the joys and struggles of life and growing as she faces being alone with the spirits who will be her guide. The setting seems unfamiliar to someone who has never even seen the Great Lakes, but the characters are familiar. The beautiful older sister, the annoying little brother, best friend, grandmother, father, mother, people of the community. These are all the same for most readers, though they go by different titles here. These familiar things help detract from what you don't know about the time period, so that you pick up facts in bit and pieces of the narrative. For example, in this exchange with her sister at the end of a long day of fishing,

"'You're crazy,' Omakayas grumped, knowing her adored older sister was too far out in the water to hear her. 'And I'm all tired out and cold. I'm leaving.'"

We see that common attitude of a typical younger sister, but are aware that they have been out fishing all day in order to trade the fish for supplies.


Reviews


"this long-awaited sequel is framed by catastrophe, but the core of the story, which is set in 1850, is white settlers'threats to the traditional Ojibwe way of life. Omakayas is now nine and living at her beautiful island home in Lake Superior. But whites want Ojibwe off the island: Where will they go? In addition to an abundance of details about life through the seasons, Erdrich deals with the wider meaning of family and Omakayas'coming-of-age on a vision quest."
-Booklist starred (May 15, 2005 (Vol. 101, No. 18))


Enrichment Activity

Omakayas has many dreams that seem to be predictors of what is to come. Students can describe a dream that they have had, and then illustrate it, or chose one of Omakayas' dreams to illustrate. This could be followed by writing about what you drew, especially with older students to work on adjectives and adverbs to describe their dreams well.