These Books Made Me
These Books Made Me
The Birchbark House
In a TBMM first, we read a book with substantially different editions! That's right, we all came to the podcasting table calling the main character by different names. We got that sorted out (and we're defaulting to the most current edition) and dove right in to this lovely book, The Birchbark House, by Louise Erdrich. This book made us laugh and cry and everything in between as we follow Omakakiins and her family through the seasons. This week we discuss whether Old Tallow is a feminist legend, whether a baby can be reincarnated as a bird, and the pretty disturbing origins of the smallpox vaccine. We compare and contrast today's title with the Little House books and examine femininity and our central characters' relationships with their environment.
These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.
Hi, I'm Hawa. I'm
SPEAKER_02:sorry.
SPEAKER_03:I didn't know you were actually starting the whole thing. Yeah, let's just do it again because my earrings didn't make noise.
SPEAKER_00:I'm Hawa. I'm Hannah. I'm Heather. I'm Darlene. And this is our podcast, These Books Made Me. Today, we're going to be talking about The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. Friendly warning, as always, this podcast contains spoilers. If you don't yet know who encounters a family of bear, proceed with caution. Content warning, death, including the death of a child.
SPEAKER_01:Great. So what did this book mean to you? Was this everyone's first time reading? If not, how did this reread compare to your memories of reading it when you were younger?
SPEAKER_00:This was my first time. Same.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, same.
SPEAKER_03:It was my first time reading it. This is another one I read back in grad school. So this was my second read of this. I honestly didn't remember it very well, which on reading it again surprises me because I really liked it and I thought it was really well written and I love the main character. But I really enjoyed the reread and I thought it was like a nice pairing after we had just read Little House.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, I thought this was a really good book to compare. We can talk about it more in the discussion, but I think there was a lot of parallels.
SPEAKER_03:The Birchbark House follows an Ojibwe family's life through the changing of seasons over the course of 1847 and 1848. We are initially introduced to the book via a prologue set on Spirit Island. A group of men arrive via canoe and find the island wiped out by smallpox, save a baby girl crawling alone through the bodies of her kin and community members. The novel proper picks up with the introduction of our protagonist, Amakikins, or Little Frog. a seven-year-old Ojibwe girl who lives with her family near one of the Great Lakes. Her father, Mikwam, known as Dede, is stern but witty and has gone trapping for long stretches of time. Her mother, Yellow Kettle, is vivacious and laughing but has a short temper that she struggles to control. Her older sister, Angeline, is beautiful and talented at beadwork. Her younger brother, Pinch, is a rowdy trickster who gets on Omakekin's nerves, and she has a special bond with her baby brother, Niwo, who she dotes on and thinks of as her own baby. Omakakins has a special bond with her grandmother, Nokomis, a talented healer. The book opens as the family readies for summer by preparing a birch bark house, with bark harvested by Nokomis and Omakakins. Nokomis sees gifts of healing in Omakakins and tells her to listen to the plants. In the woods, Omakakins encounters two little bear cubs and feeds them, feeling comfortable and safe as she plays with them. The mother bear arrives initially angry and knocks Omakakins over, but spares her as she talks gently to the bear and explains that she would never hurt her cubs. The encounter forms a special bond between Omakakins and the bear spirits, and she feels protected and more secure within herself as she contemplates this bond while scraping a moose hide for her family. We again see Omakakeen's special bond with animals when she rescues a crow too young to fly when driving birds off from the corn crop. The crow is named Andeg and becomes her shadow for the following year. We meet other members of the community over the course of the summer and fall. There's Old Talo, a formidable woman who lives with her pack of bear hunting dogs and is as strong as any man. She is imposing and gruff, but has a special love for Omakakeens and Nokomis. We meet Fishtail, a handsome young man who is married to Angeline's heart friend, Ten Snow. We meet Albert Lapote, a pompous man with ten children. We learn that the white men are encroaching on their island and trying to send the Anishinaabeg west. We see the family preparing for the long winter, dancing rice and putting out food stores. We also learn that Andeg can talk. The end of fall brings a trip into town and a move to the log cabin for the long winter. Omaka Keens learns to bead with Ten Snow, spies on the white man's school that Fishtail is attending, and watches her mother prepare a jingle dress for Angeline. The community gathers at the dance lodge when tragedy arrives. A sick traveler arrives from fur trapping and dies the next day. Smallpox ravages the community. Everyone becomes deathly ill with the disease, except for Omaka Keens, Nokomis, and Old Talo. Omaka Keens takes responsibility for nursing her family, but Niwo dies in her arms. Angeline's beautiful face is marred and scarred by the disease, and her mother and father are weak and frail. Ten Snow does not survive the epidemic and fishtail attempts to end his own life. The family attempts to recover from their losses, and Omaka Keynes retreats into herself, depressed and unspeaking. Hunger is another enemy, with the family too weak to find food and reliant on Old Tallow's meager hunts to survive. Dede eventually has to take on debt at the town stores to get them through winter, though he wins his money back playing chess against the store owner. Ultimately, Nokomis has a vision of one horn, a huge buck, sacrificing himself to save the family. She tells Dede where to find the great deer and the kill feeds the family back to health. Spring arrives and preparations for sugaring begin. Amakakins goes into the woods alone and encounters her bear brothers again. She warns them of the dangers of humans and asks the bears to give her the gift of medicine. She begins to hear the voices of the plants. Pinch has an accident with the hot maple syrup and scorches his feet. Amakakins tends to him and prepares a healing poultice while the family goes to get Nokomis. Her gifts as a healer are apparent and her path forward is clear to her. Andeg returns to her after leaving to be wild again. Ultimately, Oltalo sits Omakakins down to tell her about herself. She tells her about the baby on Spirit Island. Oltalo tells her that Omakakins was that baby, and that she was sent to nurse and heal her adopted family because she had survived smallpox and was immune. Omakakins has a vision of Niwo as her protector, and the book ends with her broken heart beginning to heal.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so for our author bio, Karen Louise Erdrich was born on June 7th, 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota to a French Ojibwe mother, Rita Gornou. and a German-American father, Ralph Erdrich. She is the oldest of seven children and grew up in Waupachan, North Dakota, a town close to the Minnesota border. Both of her parents were employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs School and the family lived in employing housing. Erdrich's parents encouraged writing and storytelling in their family. In addition to Louise, three of her sisters, Hyde, Lisa, and Angela also became writers. Their Ojibwe grandfather, Pat Gorno, was the tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Reservation. And although Erdrich didn't live on the reservation, she did visit it growing up and heard traditional storytelling from her grandfather, who she says was an important figure in her life. Rita, Louise's mother, was born on the reservation. Louise attended mostly public schools, but did enroll for a time at a Catholic school named St. John's. Louise applied to Dartmouth in 1972 at the encouragement of her mother, who had learned about a program for Native Americans, and Erdrich attended Dartmouth in the first class of women admitted to the college. She studied both English and creative writing and graduated in 1976. She met there her future husband, Michael Doris, the director of the Native American Studies program, as well as a writer and anthropologist. Well at Dartmouth, Erdrich had won writing awards, edited the Boston Indian Council newspaper, The Circle, and discovered that she had a skill for poetry. She finished her BA with a resolution to be a writer. For two years after she had earned her undergraduate degree, Erdrich was a visiting artisan teacher for the Dakota Arts Council. She earned an MFA in writing in 1977 from Johns Hopkins and married Michael Doris in 1981. Just to note, I found conflicting dates on the MFA. One said 77, one said 79. Just wanted to note that. She and Doris raised three adopted children and had three biological children together, but separated in 1995. Doris died by suicide in 1997, well under suspicion of having sexually abused his children. Erdrich released her first novel, Love Medicine, and a poetry volume, Jack Light, in 1984. She released a second volume of poems, Baptism of Desire, in 1989. Erdrich has written prolifically fiction for both adults and children, as well as poetry and nonfiction. The Birchbark House, the beginning of a series for children, was written in 1999 and was a National Book Award finalist. Erdrich is a nationally enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota. Erdrich enjoys collage in addition to all her other artistic endeavors.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so I thought we would kick off the discussion by taking a quick look at it compared to the Little House series since that was our last episode and we wanted to look at this book as sort of a contrasting look at a similar time period. Does anybody have any thoughts about how the Birchbark House read post-Little House read for them?
SPEAKER_01:I think for me it was surprising just how similar the stories were. You know, like a father that kind of has to leave for an extended period of time to provide for the family. They both... have like a middle sister that's like narrating uh like the family story i don't know there was just so many comparisons but it just felt so normal i think it just highlighted just how like inhumanely like they were um native americans were portrayed in the little house series and just kind of lends credence to the idea that like Yeah, when you dehumanize people, like it's so easy to just kind of see them as like not human. But when you actually hear their stories, you realize just how like similar we are.
SPEAKER_03:When you said that it just seems so normal. There's so many of the same things happening in both books. You know, the seasons are driving daily life in both books. And so the othering that happens in Little House, it's so odd to then read this and be like, well, you had so much in common. I mean, you guys, your daily lives looked very, very similar to each other. But then I also thought something that was different that was interesting to me was in spite of having very similar day-to-day lives, I feel like the Little House books are often characterized by fear. There's so much in there about the mom being scared of what's outside, the whole family being scared about Indians coming by, Fear of starvation, fear of wild animals, like there's a lot of fear in the Little House books. And there's very similar things are happening in their lives. You know, they have the threat of the white man. They have threats of disease, just like they did. They have threats related to the weather, to animals. In Birchbark House, I feel like there's never that fear present. It's much more, this is just part of our lives now. people are just part of this ecosystem, you know, and it all works together. And so I think that that's very interesting to me as a contrast. You have Little House where it's more, the white family is trying to master or tame this like scary environment and like make it theirs in some way. And I don't get that from this book at all. It's much more of a This is just our life and we are part of everything around us. I
SPEAKER_02:was thinking about the ages of every kid and maybe not little pinch who takes a little longer to grow up in some ways, but like Angeline and the audio book I listened to pronounce the name. Omakayas, I think. Yeah, you've got the one that has the different version of the name. Yeah, it's a different transliteration of the name. So I'm not quite sure how to say her name for this recording. But she's seven and her sister is nine. I can't remember. Oh,
SPEAKER_03:I don't remember how old Angeline is, but she's older. She's getting to the age where she's going to be in the dancing and they're talking about her like leaving to get married soonish.
SPEAKER_02:But they're going and, you know, specifically Omakayas, who's very young and she's going around, she's very self-possessed and she's dealing with an aggressive dog and she's dealing with a bear. And, you know, they're making plans to, you know, look for food and they even make a plan to, you know, catch and pluck and crows. And I don't know, they're just, they're not phased. They're very competent. They're very brave. They're very, maybe mature is not the right word, but they're, They're just very competent little people used
SPEAKER_03:to their environment. On that note, from what you just said, them not being fearful, it to me brings up the idea that the girls in this book are not constrained by gender roles in the same way that happened in Little House. There's a lot in Little House where it's, well, women don't do this, women do that. Girls don't do this. They do this. And in here, even when you have the little character, Two Strike?
SPEAKER_00:That's what I was trying to look up the name. Two Strike Girl, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Who they remark on, she's as fast as the boys and she prefers the things that the boys usually prefer, like hunting and fighting and, you know, she's rowdier. That's valued in the book. You know, like they really value her for what she has in terms of skills. Yeah. it doesn't seem like there's the same constraints there. So maybe that's a good segue to talking about feminism in the book a little bit. Cause I, I definitely felt like this was a departure from little house on that front. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:no, definitely. I think I appreciated all the different roles that women have because they felt different in a way that in little house. Yes. You have like the women in the families and we talked about like the matriarch of the, And we got the father, just like the father's mother, which is the protagonist's grandmother. But we talked about, you know, people following her lead in certain respects. But I think for the most part, like women tended to the house. And so everything that they did throughout their week was based on that. Yes, you had certain roles that women kind of that women had. But what I appreciated was that everyone connected. like it looked different for different people, right? Like there's... tallow and she's like her own woman and she's really independent and she has no husband and so she's the huntress. She's a person that's like hunting. Well, she got rid of her
SPEAKER_03:husband, right? She got rid of her hat.
SPEAKER_02:She's had three husbands, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and it sounded like she got rid of hat because he left the baby on the island. She was just like, yeah, we're done. I'm going to get the baby and don't be here when I come
SPEAKER_02:back.
SPEAKER_01:She was not pleased with him. She was standing on business there. That was actually hilarious because we didn't know, right? Like at the beginning of the story, we hear from Hatt's perspective that he saw a baby and he was like yeah my wife you know she's the strong one like I'll tell her about it I'm sure she's gonna come get this baby essentially so like he understands that and then at the end we kind of find out like how Talo is connected to everything and then we're like oh she's the wife and not only is she the wife but she also left her husband or well like kicked him out essentially because of that because she was like I'm not gonna stay in to a coward.
SPEAKER_00:And also the fact that she could do that, like she was able to be able to kick him out and he just left as opposed to being like, no, this is my home. I'm going to stay. You're not going to tell me what to do. Well,
SPEAKER_03:and it doesn't seem like that hurt her place in the community at all. She's just herself and people are like, yeah, that's old Talo.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and they judge her a little but not to the extent that I feel like she would have been really ostracized in a community like in Little House. So yeah, I appreciate like Talo and then there's like the grandmother their figure like still around and she's more of the healer and then there's the mother character which i mean i think she tends to a lot of the traditional like just i guess like things that women do or did um for their community i i really liked the like differences where it didn't feel like everyone's role was yeah exactly the range where it didn't feel like everyone's role was the same just different fonts or something well think
SPEAKER_00:again nerd hole because i'm comic saying I think it was interesting. Like you can definitely tell like with two strike girl, like you can definitely tell that there were certain things that they obviously understood to be like traditionally done by women. I'm using quotation marks. Y'all can't see me, whatever. But like she did it for a little bit, but she just kind of went off to just go do her thing again, you know? And I felt like they were really understanding of that. Like they were like, yeah, you're going to sit down and do this, but like, for the most part, it wasn't her personality or who she was. And they understood that they didn't force it on her.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure. And I like to the, you know, like how I was saying, there's a range of different depictions of the feminine in here. And I like to that the most traditional maybe role that we see, it would be 10 snow who is, you know, she's a good wife and she's an excellent, like beater and stuff. But, All of that seems to me to be framed in the context of she is this way because she's a tremendously kind person. And so like her beating, you don't just see like, oh, she developed this skill that girls are supposed to be good at. And it's like, you know, it's great that she's like a master beater. It's she developed this skill and she loves her husband and has like internalized that his favorite food are these like blue ferns. And so she beads the thing. in a way that's evocative of that. Like she's always thinking of others. And so I think that that is what the book values for her is her kindness and her love for other people more than the skills. And I think that that to me differs because I think in Little House, you know, Mary's valued because she's proper and she's quiet and she's doing her needlework perfectly and Laura can't, do any of that she's more you know tomboyish and running around but the like skills get valued more than the person I think in that book and here it always feels very rooted in the personality of the character and like they do these things but it's about who they are like Nokomis's healing skills it's not treated as some like oh well she just has this magic gift it's like no she's the kind of person who that is observant and listens and wants to help people. And so she's developed these skills. I feel like that's a really refreshing thing in this book because-
SPEAKER_02:I feel like they value both intention and hard work when they
SPEAKER_01:align. Because there was sort of like a feeling of this is a sort of calling, but it also is- because this is the kind of person that they are. So yeah, I agree with that. I mean, going back to your original observation, Heather, about kind of fear driving like Little House versus this book. I noticed that too, but I think I was thinking about it in terms of like as people, as Native Americans, I think they just have dealt with so much that I think they just had to learn to adapt to the next thing versus like, you know, especially like the white settlers in that area. Like, I think because they could take, they knew that they could stand to lose. And I feel like maybe that's why they come from a place of fear. And also because, yeah, they're not indigenous to that land. They don't have like a generations of people kind of coexisting with the wildlife there. So there is a lot of like unknown and like, yeah, like if, if you're, if when you came to, You tried your hardest to not come across bears or to kill them as soon as you saw them. And no true understanding of when they might leave you alone versus when they might not. They don't come at it from a point of understanding. It's just kind of fear. And so that just trickles across different generations then. They don't really understand... The location where they are. I agree with you there. And I think that I appreciated that about this book, too, because it's like the same terrain, essentially. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:they're in Minnesota versus I think we start in Wisconsin with the big little house in the big woods. So basically the same environment, I would say. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that's a really good point that Because the white settlers are foreigners in many ways. And that would make you more fearful because you're always responding rather than existing alongside
SPEAKER_02:of things. Yeah. Remember when Machias is coming back from getting the scissors from Old Tallow and she's looking for those berries. And I remember thinking, like, as a kid walking around, like, I would only have the vaguest ideas of, like, what. things would be safe to eat. Like I remember, I mean, I would know what raspberries were, or we used to eat honey, bite the bottom of honeysuckles and stuff in Nicaragua as kids. But like, if you just walk around and you're raised with a family and a people that knows land very well, and you know, by sight, this is edible, this is not. And she just knew confidently, I can gather these, I can eat a handful of them. I can bring them home. Like, She had no fear about any of that because she had the knowledge and she was thinking like, well, am I going to share any of these with my sister? That was her main thought, not, you know, is this poisonous?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's funny. We were just talking the other day at New Carrollton about foraging. And I guess the city is making like little farms. a food forest out of Veterans Park. And I mentioned that every time I go to pick mulberries, people frequently will stop and be like, are you sure you should eat that? Is that safe? Are you sure you should be? Should you be eating that? Like, it's horrifying to them to see somebody picking food and eating something off of a tree, which is very weird to me. Like, where do you think the food comes from?
SPEAKER_02:Molderies are not coded as edible in many people's minds, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think we generally in this country grow up very removed from our environment and very removed from our food sources and such. So that's kind of an interesting, if you trace that back to like the little house stuff, like, oh, maybe this is how we got here, you know, versus this, which is a much more living with your environment and like knowing your environment really well. Yeah. I guess we should circle back to the name because, so we all have different editions of the book, I think. I've got the 2024. Yours is the, is that the 99 one?
SPEAKER_02:What year is
SPEAKER_03:this?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this is, well, it says copyright 99, but it has a couple of subsequent editions that, Well, it's hard to cover the same year, 1999, but it has first paperback edition, 2002. So yours is later. So I guess they changed how they spelled the names. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:The note that I found on this was that the original name in the book, Omakayas, was taken from a tribal role. Okay. And that's a different spelling than the standard Ojibwe way to say little frog, which would be a macaquins. So she had initially taken that name off of a historical role and then I guess changed it over time to reflect the language a little bit better. She initially had chosen to keep the name from the tribal role that she found to keep it grounded in the time period. So what the note says.
SPEAKER_02:So Amaka Keens would be more accurate.
SPEAKER_03:It sounds
SPEAKER_02:like.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, I guess or or maybe just more familiar to actual speakers of the language. Let me see if I can find the
SPEAKER_02:copyright in the audio book I listen to, because that seemed to match the spelling in this
SPEAKER_03:book. Yeah, the audio version that I listened to had the author as the reader for it. And my book itself has Omaka Keens instead of Omakias. Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, well, if the author is going with that, do you have another copyright on the audio book by any chance?
SPEAKER_03:I'm assuming it's also 2024. Let me pull it up.
SPEAKER_00:What are you trying to find, Hannah? When this was released?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, when it was published.
SPEAKER_00:The audio book, this one is done March 11, 2008.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so that's significantly older than the one Heather listened to. Because it
SPEAKER_03:sounds like... Mine was released December of 24. So a
SPEAKER_00:year ago. So that's, I guess, the most correct, accurate.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, I'm going with it since it was the author. On names, the baby... It's Niwo in all of your copies. So the baby is called Niwo in the book. Mine in the audio, she refers to the baby as Niwo like two or three times. And then every other time the name appears in the book, she refers to him as Aya'a, which I don't know what that means. It is not explained in the audio book, but there's a whole... sort of side plot about the baby still needing a real name.
SPEAKER_01:So
SPEAKER_03:the tradition is that there are certain people in the community that are allowed to be namers. And this seems to be based on they get visions or allows them to sense something about the child that the name will then make sense for that child.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So then how long do they go without names before? Because With the main character, her name means like first step because she stepped like a frog or something. So did she not get a name until she started walking? Well, her name means little frog. Little frog, yeah. And
SPEAKER_03:so, yes, she was named because she was kind of hoppy rather than walky when she started walking. So, I mean, I think... it is that they get into like toddlerhood, at least where they start to show personality and things like that, where the name comes. And so none of the namers are able to come up with anything for Niwa, which is really sad then by the end, because it's like, oh, what's the reason? Because he had no future. And so they weren't able to see. No,
SPEAKER_01:that had me stressed. I was like, because, you know, when you read on Kindle, it tells you like percentage wise, I was like 33% in and he still doesn't have a name. I was like, he's going to I was like, I was like, someone needs to name him. And then I thought maybe for a brief second, like little frog would name him because she kept thinking like that. He was a lot like a bird, but it didn't happen. And she would just keep that to herself. And I was like,
SPEAKER_03:so that's what I'm wondering with the audio. If that is why she replaces the name. Even though it says Niwo in the book, the author keeps recording it as Ayaha because there's that whole scene where she's making like little bird noises to him and calls him like a little chickadee and stuff. And so I was wondering if that word was a name for one of the birds that were in that chapter and that was... So then to her, she had named that baby, which to me would feel a lot better. Than
SPEAKER_00:knowing that he just passed without a name?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And Niwu meant like little brother, right? Yeah, I think it was just a diminutive, like calling somebody baby kind of thing. Oh, okay, okay. I thought it meant
SPEAKER_01:fourth
SPEAKER_03:or something. Oh, that's right. Yeah. He was the fourth child.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Yeah. I just, I know that it was like, yes, we're saying like new, but that was not his name and it was not a name. It was just like a placeholder until they had a name for him. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm, I'm going to try to do more research on that. Cause I really want to know why she kept calling him. I, even though it's written as new. But then at the end. Okay. So he has died. And then. Undeg has been wild and comes back. Did you all feel that that was meant to like also represent the baby? Like that the bird had that connection to the baby and was like trying to tell her like it's going to be OK. Like the bird was meant as like a messenger. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I guess I didn't. I didn't get that from on deck at least. So yeah, so there was that scene. But then right after I think she's like looking up and then there was like tons of birds and I think it was like a particular kind of bird. What was it? At the end. But that's what I, you know, because they attributed that she attributed that specifically to her brother and saying that, you know, she was going to she was going to be OK kind of thing. So I guess I thought of it as like to those birds, not the crow. OK,
SPEAKER_03:I felt like he was sending a message to them like that. The baby was with the bird because the bird comes back just like enough to like set on pinch and be like, oh, pinch learned something. He's matured. And then he sits on Omaka Keen's shoulder and tucks the hair behind her ear. And I thought that that was like meant to be a sign that like, you know, Niwa was with her still kind of like that when the bird came back after the baby died, it was like, it's going to be okay. Like, we're still always with you type of thing. Cause the bird seems so relevant. Like even, so right after that is when Othello tells, I guess spoilers, cause this is the full circle of the book. When Othello at the very end of the book is telling Omaka Keene's like, look, you were a baby on this Island and we brought you back and you were alone there. Everyone had died and, And she says, oh, I remember the birds. It's the one thing that she remembers was all of the bird sounds. So, like, I thought that that was supposed to somehow indicate, like, that those birds were sort of, like, all the people she had lost on Spirit Island were there protecting her. And now Niwa was here protecting her. And, like, Ande is, like, a sign of that. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe because the Ande thing happened and then she had the conversation. And then... it seems that she is like on a grassy, on the grassy ground. Um, and then there are birds that are making noise, but they're sparrows and they're making different noises. And then that's, she heard a new voice and then she felt like that was new. Um, so yeah. So I attributed new spirit to being among the like sparrows and not on day, but, um, I was curious about like Andei like leaving and then returning and only like half remembering her or like feeling kind of not that like instant connection. I attributed Andei to like helping her like learn to love Pinch a little bit more or appreciate him more. And then I thought of the sparrows as the like connection to Niwu. presumably it was also sparrows in the Spirit Island. And that I don't know, because I didn't specify that they were sparrows, just that it was birds like singing prettily as a lullaby. But also I just felt so bad. I was like, did Ande have to leave? I was like, I know. I kept like, I kept reading this book and I was like, these are really good lessons to learn, right? Like, You know, because there's like lessons on grief and then also like everyone has their own like purpose in life. At the end, like Ande does have to leave because obviously he's not a human. He needs to be with his own community and he does come back. But she kind of had to learn to like let him go. And I was like, these are all really interesting like lessons for like readers to learn about. I just hated it.
SPEAKER_00:Hate
SPEAKER_01:it. I hated that Ande had to leave because she'd suffered so much by then that I was like, man. Like another one? Yeah, I was like, because she says she didn't think she had more tears to shed. And then Ande has to leave and she knows that. And then she kind of like still cries for him. And I was like, man, like she's really gone through so much at this point.
SPEAKER_00:And then she can't stand her brother. other like I know right and then her sister's sad and sick and then she lost tens like and then
SPEAKER_01:they're moving on or like she feels like they're moving on and she can't really quite move on with them like she doesn't know how to so it's just it's a lot going on for her and I was like man and she has to learn another lesson on top of that which is to like let something go especially like like follow its own path and yeah I was like man can't she have anything can't she just have a pet bird I also
SPEAKER_03:felt like that was related to Niwo because it was like, okay, that baby died and then the bird left to be be free I just felt like the bird was the baby
SPEAKER_02:I raised a baby blackbird that had fallen out of a nest and busted its leg and it you know it was friendly for me for a while like it would come when I called it it was really bad at landing like it I would call it it would crash into my shoulder and bounce off because it was really bad at landing but as soon as like it was big enough to fly off the other birds it was gone it's like so long but you know that's
SPEAKER_03:We had the opposite experience. My cousin, when I was very little, found a green jay that had fallen out of the nest on my grandparents' land and, you know, raised it up healthy and stuff. And that bird lived in my grandparents' house. Just, you know, had run of the house, wasn't ever in a cage or anything. He was, I mean, jays are so smart. Like he was... Very clever. He loved to steal people's cigarettes and he loved to drink my grandfather's beer. I'll have to see if I can find a picture of a bird for you guys because, yeah, he was super cool. Was he a bird named Bird? Maybe it's different with Corbin. He was named Bird.
SPEAKER_01:And how long did he live with
SPEAKER_03:you? Oh, I mean, he was... golly, he must have been at least 20-something by
SPEAKER_01:the time. That's what I'm saying. Ande could have just lived with that forever until he died. No, but, no, I get it, though. I get the storyline. And that's why I added, like, I don't know how to pronounce it, but, like, yeah the stories yeah the traditional stories I really appreciated them
SPEAKER_02:throughout
SPEAKER_01:but yeah I really appreciated them throughout this like book because I felt like compared to the little house like stories that like pa and ma would like tell them I was like these are not like their
SPEAKER_03:stories were like we did this then we got whipped yeah
SPEAKER_01:this is why you should not do such and such these were way better Yeah. So I appreciated these so much more like when they came up.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I really like those stories. I think that they definitely gave like a different level of like I just felt like it was a great like cultural connect for them to include those stories. I have a question for y'all. So. When y'all were reading this book, did y'all instantly know that like she was the baby from the beginning?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, at 2.75 speed. Oh my gosh, Darlene. When she said that, I was like, I actually didn't know that audiobooks went that fast. I'm here on 1.5 and
SPEAKER_03:having to back up sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think I can absorb it
SPEAKER_00:at this speed. So for people who don't know, you can do... up to 3.0 speed. That's so fast. You can do up to 4.0 speed. How do you even understand
SPEAKER_03:it if it's that fast?
SPEAKER_00:I've never really done it at 4.0, but I was fascinated to see that that was an option. 3.0 or 2.75, I'm definitely following along with the words as well. I talk really fast, so I can listen to audio really fast. It's crazy. And I think what it was, I was reading the book, I was like, dang, so where does the baby come in? I was like, is the baby one of the parents? or something like i really did not know so i feel like
SPEAKER_02:you were as surprised as she was and
SPEAKER_00:i'm like maybe i don't know i think really because i was reading it that fast but like i also it also made me wonder like if i was a kid reading this would i also have felt like it was as big of a plot twist or would i have just been like Yeah, no, that was the baby. And I think it probably just depends on the age, maybe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, I will say, while I did know that she was the baby, I think like her, I kind of followed the conversation that she was having with Tala where she was like, okay, well... you know, was I left or like, I think she was hinting at like, are you trying to say like, you're my mom kind of thing. And I remember thinking for a while because Talo is so close to the family. I was like, oh, is she the mom? And she just let these, this other family raise her because maybe she's like super independent and didn't think that she could take care of a child. And then I felt bad because in the end, then, you know, you get into the story about how, no, like Talo, She went to go save this baby and even like... Divorced her husband. Yeah, divorced her husband. Like kicked her husband out. Because he was like too coward to, you know, save the baby. And I was like, man, why did I even doubt her? Like, of course, you know, like she wasn't the mother. Like if she was, she would have done her best to like have raised her.
SPEAKER_03:I didn't think she was the mom, but I did... initially wonder oh did she go back and get the baby and then the husband died and at that point she gave the baby to a family thinking like she needs a whole family not just me um but no she just kicked her out yeah and then was like the baby needs a whole family not just me because i just kicked my husband out
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_03:get out
SPEAKER_00:i think had i um I think had I not been reading so fast, I probably... If I didn't catch her from the beginning, what would have been the giveaway for me was probably the smallpox thing. Because I'm just like, how is she taking care of all these people? And she didn't get it. But then the grandma's in there also taking care. Are she not worried that she's going to get it? So I was wondering about that. So I think had I not made that connection, I would have noticed around... the smallpox thing. Yeah. When
SPEAKER_01:I read that part about the smallpox, I was like super tired. So I didn't like Google it, but I was like, in my head, I was like, man, like note to self, like Google are some people just like naturally immune to smallpox. And I should have known like, it's that, you know, you would have had it before. And that makes so much more sense. But I was just like, yeah, like, that's so weird. I was like, it's going to come back. I know it, but like, why were they immune versus like the whole family? Yeah. It
SPEAKER_03:was interesting, too, that we find out that Nokoma Centalo had had it before. Yeah. And that was why they kept going. I really wanted to know more about that. Like, when did that happen? And like, did it wipe out half the community like it did here? Because, yeah, I mean, this round of it was fatal to so many people. It's like, gosh, just the idea of like that same community being having had an epidemic wipe out a bunch of people multiple times. Like, that's just horrifying to think about.
SPEAKER_02:Death rate is like one in three.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, God. Yeah, that's just brutal. And it's such a horrible, horrible illness to like it.
SPEAKER_00:And like, I felt bad for obviously all of them, but I definitely also really felt bad for like Fishtail. Oh, that was so bad.
SPEAKER_03:He was so
SPEAKER_00:distraught. Devastated and distraught. And then for him to, I think they say he cut off his ponytail. Yeah, he cut all his hair
SPEAKER_03:off. Well, after he slid it Yeah. you know, what they're dealing with. I thought he was clever and he clearly loved his
SPEAKER_01:wife.
SPEAKER_03:And I loved when he came back to the family, told Amaka Keens, like, Ten Snow thought of you as a little sister. I
SPEAKER_00:thought that was so sweet. And
SPEAKER_03:she said, you had this amazing gift with animals. And I can see that now. And like, you know, that he wanted her to have that knowledge. Yeah. You know, that was a really lovely thing. Most young men I don't know would think to do that, especially when they're grieving, you know?
SPEAKER_01:And, you know, I think a testament to the author as well is kind of how she portrays Fishtail at the beginning as someone that is very, like, proud and is very, like, forward thinking. And then after his grief, like, Amakakan's, like... kind of how that grief has changed him. And even like in the look of his eyes that he looks a bit more humble. I forget the exact wording that she used, but I appreciated kind of like the visual wording as well to kind of show like she could sense that in him now too. Like he'd lived through a really big tragedy and now like he's on the other side of it and even looks different because of it. Yeah, grief
SPEAKER_03:changes people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And maybe even like And maybe it even made sense that she noticed it in him because she herself went through a great tragedy.
SPEAKER_03:To show that this event changed people in such a variety of ways. You know, Angelina's horribly scarred from it, which is, you know, often what we think of with smallpox. But Fishtail is just as scarred. It's just internal. You know, I don't think anyone comes out the other side unchanged. Old Tallow's like mellowed enough to like have this conversation with Amaka Keynes now. The parents are frailer and it's harder for them to do things. So I really, I thought it was a very nuanced character driven book for the age it's written for. I think this differs from Little House in that Little House was really more of a memoir. of sorts. You know, she took a lot of liberties with certain things. She was like two when she lived in the little house in the big woods, but, you know, writes it from the perspective of, you know, a kindergartner, basically. But this was not. Louise Erdrich did not live any of this. I'm curious as to how she managed to do that in a book. Although not her
SPEAKER_02:lived experience. I think she was, it sounded like she was inspired by some of her heritage through her mom's side, but I think she went and did... deep research to try to pull on authentic experiences of the time. Though I didn't, full disclosure, do a very deep dive into the research of
SPEAKER_03:how she wrote the book. Feels a lot more deep than some of the other historical fiction books that we've looked at where maybe the author did not have that same level of connection. It was just like, well, like the American Girl books, which I think were really fun, but it's like, well, we want kids to learn about cholera. So I guess a best friend's going to die of cholera, you know, and it's more, I don't know, like you're almost trying to get like curricular pillars of knowledge throughout the book. And this never felt pedantic or it just felt like a beautiful children's book.
SPEAKER_02:I was thinking at one point, if this was like a Kirsten narrative, something was going to go hilariously, terribly wrong at this point, but it doesn't. Like she just has like, this lovely afternoon with her little brother and then, and nothing goes wrong. And it's just kind of a meaningful moment. And then her family comes back and there's no shenanigans.
SPEAKER_03:Pinch is definitely the Kirsten of this book. Stop it. He's falling in a bucket. He's pouring molten syrup on his feet.
SPEAKER_00:Sets his pants on fire. Sets his pants literally on fire. And I also think that, I think that the differences that we've kind of discussed in our like different editions also kind of Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. it seems like it speaks to her wanting to get it right. Um, cause it seems like in the version that you have, Heather, there's less of like direct translation in throughout the text, especially because she provides that glossary in the back of the book. So I think that was really interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I would really encourage anybody to listen to the audio book version that the author did. How you might be able to listen to it on four times speed because she has a very slow, um, almost like singing cadence to how she delivers it. But I think she's probably the best author read of their own texts that I've ever listened to. Like she's actually like a talented reader. And I thought it was very helpful for me to hear the words, like the way that they're supposed to sound. And I don't know, something about hearing the language helps, you know, the people better. I really loved it. I thought it was super good.
SPEAKER_00:Have we talked about the illustrations in the book? No. And I think they're cool. And apparently they're done by the author. Yeah, with illustrations by the author. Oh, they're lovely. Yeah. I really liked it. I thought it was a great little addition. it helps you kind of visualize some of the things that they talked about. Um, and they were just fun. Like, you know, they weren't like, Oh, I didn't
SPEAKER_02:know just that she drew that man. This woman is mostly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's, there's illustrate. She, she, she did the, the narration. She did the illustrating. She did the writing. Like she's just good at everything, I guess. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I appreciated those illustrations. Cause I feel like everyone else I can visualize, but I couldn't visualize pinch for some reason. Um,
SPEAKER_00:Yo, when Otalo cut off the dog's head, I was like, oh my God. Or not cut off the dog's head, but kill the dog from attacking. That
SPEAKER_03:was
SPEAKER_00:part
SPEAKER_03:of my season of crying. I just like cried the whole way through the spring.
SPEAKER_01:But I mean, yeah, I really like, I mean, going to, she gives even like the animals their own personalities too, which is so nice and lovely because it's like, yeah, you have all of these, you know, nice people animals that eventually like trust like little frog but then you have the dog that's like super like she's like i can just tell he's spiteful toward me like he has it in for me um because he thinks he can just like overpower me and it's like a very cowardly dog but um yeah even just the portrayal of killing him like you could tell that talo really didn't want to do it but that she had um warned him I gave you chances and it's like at this point you are endangering yeah you are endangering Little Frog because she
SPEAKER_03:also was like she basically made it sound like look I told you you could buy anyone other than this family and you just took it too far which is like such a funny thing to think about somebody like giving that directive
SPEAKER_01:to them
SPEAKER_03:right Um, let's talk a little bit about community in the book. Um, since we're on the topic of old Talo who like, man, she's a hero. She just kind of takes the whole community on her back when everyone is sick and she is feeding everybody. She is going house to house to tend to people until it finally gets so bad. Like at, um, at little frogs house that she's just like, no, I'm going to come in like you and your grandmother can't do this by yourselves anymore. Let me help. So
SPEAKER_02:this is a book. It's called Between Hope and Fear by Michael Kinch. It's about vaccines and human immunity, but obviously there's a lot on smallpox. But it just has a note about the introduction to smallpox in the new world and how devastating it is, which, I mean, I don't think it's news to any of us, but I think it's probably worth noting, like, like we're late 1800s at this point, came in in probably around 1507 from a Spanish sailor, it looks like. And then about a quarter century after Columbus had first set sail of the New World, there was a pandemic raging throughout the Americas. And basically the disease effectively decimated virtually all the native cultures on two continents. I'm quoting here, ranging from the extreme northwestern provinces of Canada to the tip of Patagonia within a few generations. I mean, it wasn't just smallpox, but a lot of it was smallpox.
SPEAKER_03:That's a terrible thing.
SPEAKER_02:I just think it's worth noting that there had already been just horrible devastation of smallpox, and then it's apparently still returning to these communities
SPEAKER_03:even at this point. The epidemic in this book is set off when there's a trapper that shows up at the dance, extremely ill, and then passes by the next day. And it's like, well, he probably was trading or something and encountered somebody and then brought it back into the community. It's just, that's just really sad to think about. You know, I think about when I was a kid and you heard about smallpox or you heard about the plague or, you know, epidemics. They felt very historic and not real. And that would not be true for our kids now. An epidemic would feel very... fresh and like understandable. I, I think to a lot of our kids, like they would have a context for that, that I certainly did not have. Maybe that would be something that you would want to talk to a kid about first and just, just say, you know, there's, this is about people experiencing a pandemic in a different time period, you know, cause we don't know the kids that come into the library. Did they lose people to COVID or so that's one of those things. conversations that maybe we do need to have with young readers now before recommending it is just so that they know what they're getting into. Cause I, that could be pretty traumatizing if your family had a rough go of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That makes sense. Especially like, I feel like her, um, being kind of like by herself as when everybody else kind of being in the separate spaces, like very similar to like quarantining and stuff like that. So, Yeah, I like what Darlene had mentioned earlier about, I mean, granted, I hadn't read Little House in the Prairie, but I liked how she just shared that she felt like when someone else's story, you know, kind of dehumanizes them, it's just nice. It's nice and refreshing to kind of just see people in their own element and their stories being told by, you know, their own people. So, and I can tell that she did the research very well. And so, yeah. Yeah. I'm actually kind of interested in reading the other ones.
SPEAKER_03:Same. Well, read her adult stuff if you haven't.
SPEAKER_00:She's an incredible adult writer. Noted. If
SPEAKER_02:you would like to take part in a game where I ask you... Questions about smallpox. You can give me your guest answers. There is a prize for the person who gets the...
SPEAKER_00:This is multiple choice.
SPEAKER_02:Some are true, false.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I'm going to suck at this so bad.
SPEAKER_02:One is multiple choice. Smallpox is caused by one virus. True or false? Tawa.
SPEAKER_03:False. Okay, wait. I might take the other side of that. So it's varicella, I think, right? Same as chickenpox. But there's... I don't understand the question.
SPEAKER_02:Let me distribute the question. Smallpox is caused by one virus, true or false? And your answer was?
SPEAKER_03:False. I guess I'll go true and say smallpox is a specific kind of varicella. You are...
SPEAKER_02:Sorry, I lost. We still know nothing about smallpox. You were correct, Tawa. Okay. And your answer was that. I was saying
SPEAKER_03:true that smallpox is a specific type of varicella. So I don't remember. There's like varicella zoster that causes what shingles. And then there's varicella whatever causes chicken pox.
SPEAKER_00:This is a very informed guess. I was just saying false because I felt like the question made it seem like it had to be more than one.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Like you would think. The way I presented it. So, Hawa, you're correct. It is correct. It is caused by the variola virus. You were close, Heather. Okay. Sorry. The virus that it is, but it's a slightly different virus. There are two variants of the variola virus. So it's not varicella then? It is not varicella. There's variola major and variola minor, also called variola minor. Alistrom, I might be saying that wrong. So variola major cause most cases of smallpox, which might be why this is partially an unfair question now that I think about it.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, wow. The virus looks like a menstrual pad.
SPEAKER_02:Does it really? Oh, yes. I
SPEAKER_03:just erased
SPEAKER_02:it, but that was very weird. It looks like one that needs to be changed. Wow. That's weird. And the one variola major causes... much worse versions of smallpox. But there's technically two viruses, although they are both the variola virus.
SPEAKER_03:And variola is also cowpox? Or is that varicella too? Oh, I'm not sure. Let's see. Cowpox. Monkeypox? Cowpox. Yes, it looks like cowpox is part of the orthopox virus
SPEAKER_02:genus. Yes, it is related.
SPEAKER_03:So many pox.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, so many pox.
SPEAKER_03:None of them are fun.
SPEAKER_02:None are fun.
SPEAKER_03:Did anyone other than me have chicken pox?
SPEAKER_02:I did. I had chicken pox. All right. Yay, team chicken pox. I have scars from it. I'm bitter. I know. Yeah, you don't want shingles. I'm sorry. I'm running this game very poorly. Question number two. Smallpox is the only human disease to have ever been eradicated. True or false?
SPEAKER_03:Eradicated globally? Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Don't overthink this one.
SPEAKER_00:Do you want to know what I wrote down? I think we've all
SPEAKER_03:answered,
SPEAKER_01:right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I said false because I don't like speaking in absolutes.
SPEAKER_01:I just put true because I was like, maybe. Maybe
SPEAKER_00:because the last one was false. I
SPEAKER_03:said false because I was thinking about polio, but then I think polio was not really eradicated globally, so that's probably wrong.
SPEAKER_00:I love how her answers are always more rooted in like, well, this makes sense because I have knowledge on these things.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so the answer is true. The World Health Organization began the campaign to eradicate it in 1967. It was declared eradicated in 1980, at which point they stopped vaccinating for it. So no one who was... They don't vaccinate for it anymore. Does anyone remember... Seeing people with little scars on their... Smallpox remains the only human disease to have been eradicated. I'm going to... For
SPEAKER_03:now.
SPEAKER_02:For now.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, so the thing was for smallpox? Yeah, that little scar on the shoulder. Oh, I always thought it
SPEAKER_02:was the
SPEAKER_01:measles.
SPEAKER_03:No, I don't think the MMR leaves a scar.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. I don't have one, and I've supposedly had the MMR, so I hope that it's not supposed to leave a scar. Oh, yeah, you're right. Okay. Question number three. This is another true and false. Smallpox can only infect human beings.
SPEAKER_03:Hmm. Okay, I will say false on that, but this is a total guess because if monkeypox and cowpox can go into people, I'm going to assume smallpox can maybe go into some other kinds of mammals. Maybe. Okay, so that's a
SPEAKER_02:false for
SPEAKER_01:Heather. I just put true because... I actually didn't have a reason. You're just going through. I'm based on vibes. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, yeah. I said false based on vibes.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. False for the H's and true for Darlene. Okay. So the answer is true. Insects and animals do not carry smallpox, which seems very weird to me. Interesting. It's just people, which I think is part of why they were able to eradicate it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Interesting. So they developed the vaccine using human...
SPEAKER_02:I have a little story to share with you about how they developed it because it is wild.
SPEAKER_03:Are we tied?
SPEAKER_02:No,
SPEAKER_03:I'm
SPEAKER_02:losing.
SPEAKER_03:I have not gotten
SPEAKER_00:any. You said true for that one, right? No, you said false. Darlene
SPEAKER_02:has two, you have one, Heather has zero. The smallpox vaccine was invented by Louis Pasteur, Benjamin Jeste, Edwin... Sorry, Edward Jenner or Ignaz Semmelweis.
SPEAKER_03:I'll go with Benjamin Jesty just because you mentioned him before, but I wish it was Ignaz Semmelweis because that's an awesome name.
SPEAKER_01:I might be mispronouncing it. I wanted Benjamin as well because I also remember that you said that name.
SPEAKER_00:Who was C? I just picked C. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, well, now I feel bad because I accidentally led you all wrong with my anecdote.
SPEAKER_00:That's crazy about you.
SPEAKER_02:The answer is Edward Jenner. Benjamin just noticed it, but he did not. He was just infecting his gardener's son for kicks. No, no, he didn't. It wasn't his. Oh, but it was his observation. It was his observation. Oh. Did I say it was his gardener's son? I guess I assumed that. I said I would cut out the names. To not get into the question. We
SPEAKER_03:played ourselves
SPEAKER_02:there. Tried to cheat. I feel a little bad there. I feel like Benjamin Jeste noticed it. Edward Jenner decided to actually test it. He took the pus and he tested it on the eight-year-old son of his gardener. And then he exposed him to the variola virus. This doesn't seem terribly ethical to me. Terrible, but thanks, I guess. Yeah. And if it matters, he took the pus from a cowpox or on the hand of Sarah Nelms, or Nelma is a local milkmaid. Apparently, James Phipps, the eight-year-old, was unwell for several days and made a full recovery. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm assuming if we follow this history, he was not compensated for any of
SPEAKER_03:this. Sure he was not. He grew up to then be the gardener at that person's property when his dad was too old to do it, probably. Probably. Sure he had no health
SPEAKER_02:insurance either.
SPEAKER_03:All
SPEAKER_02:right. So next question. The last person to die of smallpox, this would be in the 70s, was A, a researcher at in a Russian lab studying the virus, B, a person who acquired it naturally through community transmission in Somalia just before full eradication occurred globally, or C, a medical photographer in England working above a lab where they were also studying smallpox.
SPEAKER_01:Those are all very specific. I'm like, it could have been any of them.
SPEAKER_03:I'll go with A just because I know that there are still vials of smallpox in certain countries that are archived. All
SPEAKER_02:right, Heather's going with A. I went with B. You're going with B?
SPEAKER_00:I also went with B.
SPEAKER_01:It'd be so funny if it was C after you said
SPEAKER_02:one and down. All right. It is C. This is crazy. I almost picked C. Janet Parker was the last person to die of smallpox in 1978. Parker was a medical photographer at England's Birmingham University Medical School. She worked one floor above the medical microbiology department, microbiology department. I don't know why I can't pronounce words today. Where staff and students conducted smallpox research. Not sure
SPEAKER_00:what happened. I feel like any time the answer is C, I should just automatically get the point because I still went and now choose C.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So those were the last questions. Darlene has one. Good job, Darlene. Tomatoes, tomatoes. But I will send you all questions. prizes through delivery the prize is smallpox you joke but it might be this is your so
SPEAKER_01:beautiful this is your prize darling yay i was just thinking when i was reading that i wish i had a pet crow
SPEAKER_03:now you do
SPEAKER_00:Each episode, we ask whether our book passes the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test asks whether a work features two female characters who talk to each other about something that does not involve men or boys. So, does it pass? Yeah. Yes. I think without a doubt. Definitely. Honestly, I think I struggle to think of a conversation between two female characters that talked about men or boys. The women were very central characters. Women and girls were very central characters in this book. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, sometimes they would talk about like Day Day or some of the other male characters, but it just doesn't feel like it centered around them. It was just like it was about them in a way that like for Little House, as I was editing it, I mean, I was also in the recording, but it was like long pause. And then we're like, well, we don't know. Like, it was just kind of... it was like hard to really remember any conversation. And I think we went with something that kind of seemed like a stretch, like, well, they talked about a bear once. Um, and then we're like, well, is the bear male? Like we, you know, we kind of had to like, um, it was not an easy answer. Whereas I feel like for this it is. Um, and then we've also talked about like how the Bechdel test can be kind of, um, it may not always be like the great like litmus test that we use it as. Because like I said, they do talk about like the men or boys, but again, it's not like centered around them. It's just about them as part of like the greater community. I do
SPEAKER_03:want to ask, you know, on that note, would we recommend this book? Would we recommend little house? And does this book change, you know, how we feel about little house and recommending it to people at all?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think to kind of put American history into perspective, I think you need both. Like, I think, you know, if I had to choose, like, if I had a preference, I would be for Birchbark House, for sure, because I liked every aspect of it and I was not... like questioning any part of it. And there would be some conversations to be had, but not to the extent that I think for Little House. So yeah, I think it's kind of an easy out answer, but I do think like I would still recommend both. But if like I really had to choose one, I would choose this one. But I think to just give like a more well-rounded version of like American history, you'd probably want both because, you know, the way that life is portrayed in the little house series just also gives you a lot of insight into just american history at that time yeah
SPEAKER_02:i think i would i think i would could recommend this in an unqualified way if somebody's interests aligned with this um i think i could recommend this plus little house if like you said they were wanting to learn about american history but i would probably not recommend it for anyone other than an older reader but i don't think i could do an unqualified recommendation of little house i think your point about it being important to american history and somebody studying children's literature is very also is well made darling so But this book, I think this book is delightful. I think it's very easy to recommend.
SPEAKER_01:I think even if it wasn't like from the historical perspective, I would still recommend it just because I, it just so many like nice little nuggets of just things that like you would hope that kids do learn in like an easy digestible way. Like the grief in it, I feel like is something easy for a kid to, to read and kind of empathize and understand even if they haven't dealt with something like a tragedy in their life like in a personal tragedy quite that large like losing a sibling but every kid's probably
SPEAKER_02:had a loss even a small one like the loss of a pet and you know at some point soon they'll have like the loss of a i mean it's very common to lose i think a Grandparent. Grandparent, even if you're young. So, I mean, there's loss and grief in kids' lives, even when they're little.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I just think it's such a relatable character. It
SPEAKER_00:was really good. I didn't really read the description on the back, so I didn't know what I was getting into. Yeah. outside of why we chose it to pair up after Little House on the Prairie.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's it for this episode of These Books Made Me. Join us next time when we'll discuss the most unhinged series set in a fictional Southern California town. If you think you know which book we're tackling next, follow us on Instagram. We're at thesebooksmademe and drop a comment on our Guess Our Next Read post.
UNKNOWN:Bye.