Recommendations based on "The Birchbark House"

A story featuring three generations of strong-willed Southern women in North Carolina during the 1930s and '40s. The indomitable Charlie Kate is a self-taught country doctor who handles everything from midwifery to kitchen dentistry, and flouts convention by giving sex-education to teenagers.

Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. One day in 1850, Omakayas′s island is visited by a group of mysterious people. From them, she learns that the chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and her people to leave their island and move farther west. That day, Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never knew she had it in the first place, could be in danger: Her way of life. Her home.

Follows four generations of African American women from slavery to the early twentieth century as they struggle for economic security and the future of their families along the Cane River in rural Louisiana.

Fiercely independent and idiosyncratic, Aurora Greenway is used to the world revolving around her, but her daughter's hasty marriage and subsequent struggle with cancer cause Aurora to rethink her life. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

A moving saga of young Maggie Callahan, who arrives after a long journey from Philadelphia to live with her Aunt Franny, only to find an empty cabin. Becoming part of a strange family, the courageous Maggie faces difficult choices of life on the frontier. Vividly portrays the danger and excitement of early America.--Los Angeles Times Book Review.

City girl Nooni is surprised at the pace of life in her grandparents' village in Karnataka. But she quickly gets used to the gentle routine there and involves herself in a flurry of activities, including papad making, organizing picnics and learning to ride a cycle, with her new-found friends. Things get exciting when Nooni stumbles upon an ancient fabled stepwell right in the middle of a forest. Join the intrepid Nooni on an adventure of a lifetime in this much-awaited book by Sudha Murty that is heart-warming, charming and absolutely unputdownable.

Beguiled by promises of wealth, fourteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her native Ceylon for Malaysia and marriage to a man many years her senior. But Ayah has lied to her and her family about his circumstances and in fact lives in poverty. A woman of formidable energy and intelligence, Lakshmi provides security, if not luxury, for her family, though at a considerable emotional cost. Then the Japanese army invades during WWII. On the eve of peace, her beloved eldest daughter is raped and killed by the occupying army. The family bears deep scars and inflicts those wounds on the next generation. But in Nisha, Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, it is as if Fate has come full circle and the novel ends on a note of reconciliation and hope.

After the McLeod sisters have struggled for many years to build their reputation in San Francisco, Missie Navaez's book based on their lives causes a scandal

Called together by their aged grandmother Arab, the four McLeod cousins come to Jazz Age Hollywood and become caught in the whirl of Hollywood social life and tempted by the allure of the silver screen

Abandoning her passionless marriage to colonial civil servant, John Ford, Ann journeys to Kathmandu in a voyage of self-discovery and spiritual awakening. Against the erotic and mystical backdrop of Kathmandu, she learns the reality of love, with its pain and sacrifice.