THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE Series, by Louise Erdrich

I LOVE this series. It’s like the Native American equivalent of The Little House on the Prairie series I read as a kid. There are five books in the series as of this writing–The Birchbark House, The Game of Silence, The Porcupine Year, Chickadee, and Makoons. The author has added her own black and white drawings scattered throughout. I have to say I liked the first two or three books best (I didn’t enjoy all the Little House books equally either), when Omakayas was younger; she’s the main character of the first couple stories and is in all of the books, although younger characters take center stage as Omakayas becomes an adult and more of a background character in the stories. But I’ve enjoyed all the stories so far.

Having been a gender-variant girl, part of what I love about this series is that it features some gender-variant characters, particularly Old Tallow and Two Strike. Old Tallow is described and portrayed in illustrations as a big, tall, strong, angular woman who’s gruff, a gifted hunter who lives alone with her dogs at the edge of the community and is quite self-sufficient, building canoes, shelters, etc. She makes herself big, warm fur coats patched together from furs tanned after her hunts. Old Tallow isn’t painted in a negative way; she’s a kind and well-respected member of the community who’s like family to Omakayas (an aunt-type figure) and she has a soft spot for Omakayas. Brave and wise, Old Tallow keeps quiet and to herself but steps up big-time when people need help. Two Strike is Omakayas’s cousin, like an adopted sister to her, an energetic and strong-willed girl who wants to be a hunter instead of doing women’s work. Two Strike loves hunting and fighting and is as capable, fierce, and tough as any boy her age, but she must prove her skill as a hunter before she is no longer forced to do women’s work.

Both of these interesting characters, Old Tallow and Two Strike, successfully buck the traditional gender-roles for women in their community. Old Tallow is already well-respected as a maverick when the first story begins, but Two Strike, who comes off as a bit proud and brash as a child, has to earn respect and the right to be left alone to be ‘different.’ Which she does. And then she’s just accepted for who she is and what she wants to be. It was refreshing to see how these characters were portrayed, the love they were shown–like, no big deal, this is how they were, who they were, what they did and liked, no hard time from anyone. Yes, this is fiction, and life back then may not have been as Pollyanna-ish in this regard, but I like to believe some cultures have, and do, accept gender-variance better than ours does.

As much as I enjoyed these two characters and the roles they play in the stories, I would like these books even if Old Tallow and Two Strike weren’t in them. I don’t even know where to begin! I loved Omakayas’s little brother Pinch, her mom and dad, her grandma, Omakayas’s twin sons, Chickadee and Makoons… learning about how her family lived off the land and went with the seasons. I appreciated the ingenuous ways they did things, how they coped each time they would be forced from their lands and waterways and had to travel and make yet another new home… You have to read these books. The Birchbark House deserves to become a classic, if it isn’t considered one already.

The Best Middle Grade Books I’ve Read Recently Featuring Tomboys, Gender Identity Issues, and/or that are about Finding Your Voice, …Plus one YA, and a Couple for Adults

These are mostly books featuring characters I consider tomboys, gender-variant, or non-binary kids. The couple that are not–such as The Sweetest Sounds–are about girls who feel they have some secret and keep a lot inside and need to find their voice, and do. Some are about kids wrestling with their gender identity and also about kids who keep a lot inside (most of the books in the first two rows).

I tend to like tomboy characters who aren’t too brash (although Coyote is not shy!), sarcastic, or tough-talking, but I also like spunky ones who are just bluntly honest or don’t have much of a filter (I love how Anne of Green Gables just spews over at the mouth in this way, like she just can’t help herself, like she’s a fountain, a spontaneous stream of consciousness! Not sure she’s a tomboy but she’s a delightful character.) One book I just started, Lupe Wong Won’t Dance, seems to have a main character who is a little tough-talking (I want to give her a chance, though, because she loves sports like I did as a kid), but I’m going to feature another list of books like this soon, and, hopefully, I’ll feature this book then. I have a whole stack of books to read–about gender-identity and/finding your voice–and will post about them once I’m sure I know what they’re like and feel good about recommending them.

One of the books above is considered a young adult novel, Dairy Queen, but I show it here because it’s a really innocent YA and I loved it because I could relate to main character like I have very few girls in middle grade or YA fiction. She doesn’t seem to hate being a girl like I did, but she’s a no-nonsense person of few words and she loves sports and playing with boys. She’s tough and hardy but not in a tough/cocky way where she comes on too strong. The story has a charming humor to it, too. If you like Dairy Queen, there are more books in the series. I like them all.

The older torn-up paperback pictured, Our Only May Amelia, isn’t a recent read, I must admit, but I had to include it because it’s one of my favorite books ever in the ‘tomboy’ category. (I put that word in quotes because I still feel a bit odd using it, but having not been able to come up with one I like better, or that people wouldn’t instantly understand like they do tomboy, I’ve sort of resigned myself to using it.) Again, I could relate to this very girl growing up with brothers in a rural area. And, again, she didn’t seem to hate being a girl the way I did, but she clearly didn’t fit the norms for what a girl was supposed to be and she bucked gender-roles.

Another book I didn’t feature that I wanted to is Melissa, by Alex Gino (because I only have my old copy from back when it was titled George here; I lent my newer Melissa copy to someone who wanted to read it). It doesn’t exactly fit the above categories because it’s about someone identified at birth as a boy and named George, but “she knows she’s not a boy. She knows she’s a girl [Melissa, she’s named herself].” It’s a really good story no matter whether you’re a girl or a boy struggling with gender-identity issues. I’ve written a novel that is in many ways the flip side of Melissa, about someone identified at birth as a girl and who’s uncomfortable with that, really confused and questioning but not as sure as Melissa is about her gender.

The last two books are non-fiction and more for adults who are interested in tomboys like I am.

I hope you find something you really enjoy reading in these!