LS 5603 LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

Review of MATILDA BONE

A. Cushman, Karen. MATILDA BONE. New York: Clarian, 2000.

B. BOOK SUMMARY:
Orphan Matilda Bone, raised and indulged by Father Leufredus at the priory is forced to stay with Peg (the Red) bonesetter in a scrappy neighborhood without any of the amenities that she is use to or the holy ways. Matilda sought the life of a mystic, spoke in Latin more often than English, and was exceptionally learned for a young girl during the Middle Ages. She expects Father Leufredus to return for her after completing his travels in London. He however never returns and Matilda must adjust to being a servant girl to a bonesetter in an unsavory part of town, learning a trade that she had no desire to learn serving a mistress she first learns to tolerate and later to love as she grows up into a wiser young girl with more street smarts and compassion than she had before.

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
The book is a pleasure, really a joy to read. There is much dialog. This would be a great volume for Reader’s Theater with its large sprinkling of humor and internal and external character monologues.

The language is rich but not overwhelming. A volume that is authentic and historically accurate, Cushman does not make the mistake of too much minutiae of the past but concentrates on characterization and dialog. The absolutely best part of the book is the detailed characterization of Matilda, Red Peg, their patients and the people of the village. Matilda springs to life from page one and readers in grades 3-9 will fall in love with her………..over and over again. She is both saucy in her outlook on life but trained for higher learning, keeping the books, studying scripture, praying, and reading about and calling on the Saints each day. This leaves her unexposed to the temporal world she has come to join as a servant girl to a bonesetting female physician with sensuous tastes, words, and habits.

Students will enjoy learning about childhood during the Middle Ages and many will be inspired by the intelligent young girl who unwillingly leaves the life of the cloisters for an earthy existence as a physician’s servant.

Cushman does a praiseworthy job of showing Matilda learning the vernacular of her new surroundings without loosing her spirit. Her lust of the spiritual life becomes lust for life in general and her troubles in the early days of her new life prepare her well to be an independent and educated young woman tolerant of the differences among people, social classes, and philosophies and life’s work. Do not expect preachiness or didacticism. Cushman is way too talented and subtle to do that to her young readers.

One of my favorite passages comes from the introduction of Matilda to Peg. Peg laments Matilda’s thinness and Matilda laments that fact that Red Peg the Bonesetter has no idea that her thinness comes from fasting and having so much to eat one can become particular about what to eat.

“Great gallstones,” Peg said, “God would never have created plump and meaty if He wanted us scrawny. Here, fatten up on some of these goose-liver sausages. Best that can be bought in the market, special for your coming.” As Peg eagerly sliced up the sausages, her hair popped from beneath the kerchief and frizzled about her face, but a bit of sausage grease served to hold it down once again. She licked her sticky fingers and handed a slice os sausage to Matilda. Hungry as she was, Matilda backed away, “I cannot eat sausages.” “Whyever not?” Peg asked. “Father Leufredus says sausages are where the butcher hides his mistakes.”

A passage that describes Matilda’s comparison of her old life with her new follows. The detailed descriptions will help students understand and empathize with Matilda and the counting of the demons may make a few howl with laughter during a read-aloud.
“She treats me like a kitchen maid, though Matilda, As if I am fit for nothing but measuring and brewing. Why, I know Latin and French and some Greek, as well as reading and writing and figuring. I can name the three wise men, the seven deadly sins, and a great many of the 133,306,668 devils of Hell: Abaddon, Abduscius, Abigor……”

“Peg continued to talk, describing Blood and Bone Alley, where ordinary people came to be bled, dosed, and bandaged, with it’s barber-surgeons down this way and leeches down that.”



D. Review Excerpts:

VOYA proclaims,” No one has a better grasp of the flavor of the Middle Ages than Cushman, author of The Midwife's Apprentice (Clarion, 1995/VOYA August 1995). The sights, sounds, and smells of her fourteenth-century town of Chipping Bagthorpe creep into pores and hone senses. The plight of thirteen-year-old Matilda will capture readers' imaginations and hearts…. Slowly, Matilda begins to see that her former sheltered life was lacking the vitality and love that she now has all around her and comes to appreciate that she truly has found a home. Students studying the Middle Ages will find this novel a delightful way to learn about fourteenth-century English town life, and those who enjoy historical fiction will treasure the independent spirit of young Matilda Bone.”

Alan Review states, “Set in a 14th century English medical community, Matilda Bone is a Cushman's latest novel about a young woman finding her way in a harsh world. Matilda is left at Peg the Bonesetter's by Father Leufredus, the priest who has raised her. She is disgusted and horrified by the unholy attitudes and actions of the unlearned practitioners with whom she now lives. Determined to seek higher things, Matilda concentrates on the lives of the saints and both neglects her work and looks down on the warm, cheerful women who have taken her in. Matilda Bone is an interesting glimpse into a world seldom seen. The reader learns as much about the 14th Century medicine as notions of piety and the Catholic church—none of which fare too positively. This book, with its delightfully gory descriptions of "prescriptions," leeches, medical treatments and beliefs, would make a wonderful choice to read aloud to a class.”



E. REVIEWS ACCESSED FROM:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780440418221&tabname=custreview&itm=1

F. CONNECTIONS:

Cushman is well known for her previous works, CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY and THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE. By all means recommend these to your students or patrons if they have not read and enjoyed these before.

Another award winning book set in a similar place and time is CRISPIN: THE CROSS OF LEAD and its sequel, CRISPIN: AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. Crispin’s unexpected and unwanted change of life following the minstrel and huckster Bear is a bit similar to Matilda’s unexpected change to a physician’s servant girl to Peg the Bonesetter.