The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.

"First grader Jo Jo Makoons knows how to do a lot of things, like jumping rope, hiding her peas in her milk, and being helpful in her classroom. But there's one thing Jo Jo doesn't know how to do: be fancy. She has a lot to learn before her aunt Anne's wedding!"--

Nine-year-old Omakayas, of the Ojibwa tribe, moves west with her family in 1849.

Cork O'Connor has always considered November to be the cruelest of months, yet his daughter has chosen this dismal time of year in which to marry. When a man camping in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness goes missing, Cork is asked by the man's family to stay on the case. The wedding is fast approaching, the weather looks threatening, but Cork doesn't return from the search. Locating Cork's campsite, they find blood-- a lot of it.

This National Book Award finalist by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louise Erdrich is the first installment in an essential nine-book series chronicling 100 years in the life of one Ojibwe family, and includes beautiful interior black-and-white artwork done by the author. She was named Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop. Omakayas and her family live on an island in Lake Superior. Though there are growing numbers of white people...

"Jo Jo Makoons Azure is a spirited seven-year-old who moves through the world a little differently than anyone else on her Ojibwe reservation. It always seems like her mom, her kokum (grandma), and her teacher have a lot to learn -- about how good Jo Jo is at cleaning up, what makes a good rhyme, and what it means to be friendly. Even though Jo Jo loves her #1 best friend Mimi (who is a cat), she's worried that she needs to figure out how to make...

Set in North Dakota at a time in this century when Indian tribes were struggling to keep what little remained of their lands, Tracks is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance--yet their pride and humor prohibit surrender. The reader will experience shock and pleasure in encountering a group of characters...

Living with their Ojibwe family on the Great Plains of Dakota Territory in 1866, twin brothers Makoons and Chickadee must learn to become buffalo hunters, but Makoons has a vision that foretells great challenges that his family may not be able to overcome.

"On a quiet Philadelphia morning in 1906, a newspaper headline catapults Alma Mitchell back to her past. A federal agent is dead, and the murder suspect is Alma's childhood friend, Harry Muskrat. Harry -- or Asku, as Alma knew him -- was the most promising student at the 'savage-taming' boarding school run by her father, where Alma was the only white pupil. Created in the wake of the Indian Wars, the Stover School was intended to assimilate the children...