Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

Despite the too-convenient ending, this first novel introduces an admirable heroine and pungently evokes a largely unfamiliar setting. Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, is the diary of the fictional teenaged Lady Catherine in the year 1290. Birdy's journal, begun as an assignment, first wells up in the reluctant and aggressive prose of hated homework, and then eases into the lighthearted flow of descriptive adventures and true confessions the narrative device reveals Birdy's passage from rebellious child to responsible adult. Just as she resigns herself to her fate with the comforting knowledge that ``I am who I am wherever I am,'' word comes that she will not have to marry the oaf after all. Escaping regularly into a fantasy life of daring escapades and righteous battles, Birdy manages to postpone the inevitable sale of herself as a wife to a very unwelcome suitor. These things said, Catherine, Called Birdy is a great intro to the Middle Ages for appropriate audiences.``You can run, but you can't hide'' is the rather belated conclusion reached by Catherine, called ``Birdy'' for her caged pets, in this fictive diary of a medieval young woman's coming-of-age and struggle for self-determination. Catherine's father regularly abuses her physically she and other characters see this as completely normal. Sexual interaction, even incest, is hinted at with less than discretion. Bodily functions and diseases are discussed, as is death by childbirth, sometimes in detail. The Middle Ages was a rather gross and gritty time period, and the author stays true to that. In the end though, she does learn her own value, and finds happiness in her position. Funnily enough, she wants to be anyone but herself she considers becoming a nun, a juggler, a minstrel, and all manner of other occupations to avoid marriage.

She struggles with things modern readers can relate to: obeying parents, accepting societal expectations, and crafting her own identity. She tells us all about it, and Medieval life, in the diary she keeps at the behest of her beloved brother Edward, a monk at a nearby monastery.Ĭatherine is an intelligent, spunky character who's way ahead of her time. Catherine will concoct any plan and pull any prank to keep herself from this fate, sometimes with hilarious results. Catherine, a spirited and inquisitive young woman, narrates in diary form the story of her fourteenth yearthe year 1290. But Catherine wants nothing to do with this, and she certainly doesn't want her blowhard father to marry her off to a rich, ugly, unpleasant baron.

Thus, she's already expected to act like an adult as her mother trains her to become a lady of the manor.

Thirteen-year-old Catherine is growing up in 1290 England.