Matilda Bone

Matilda is used to a life of material pleasures. She lives in a manor with Father Leufredus. He has to go to London and Matilda is dropped off at Blood and Bone alley with Red Peg the bonesetter. She is there dubbed Matilda Bone. She instantly hates the new life, for Red Peg doesn't follow any of the rules that Father Leufredus taught her to always obey. She eventually comes to realize that life with Red Peg is better than the life she lived before, for she has friends and people to be with. She realizes that Father Leufredus' rules aren't always the law, and that made me really happy because she was getting really worked up over the fact that Red Peg wasn't perfect. I loved this book and the topic that it was based around: Medieval medicine. I think Karen Cushman is one of the best authors around, and since Medieval England is a subject that I find very interesting, I have loved all of her books on the subject. I'm currently 13, and this book was definitely below my reading level, but I loved it all the same. It's a book that I think could be read by 5th grade and up. Enjoy!

Karen Cushman writes a fabulous story about a girl called Matilda Bone, a holy, religious girl who is sent to work with a bonesetter named Red Peg in Blood and Bone Alley. At first, Matilda is repulsed with her work and seeks higher things than setting bones. She wants to meet people with better learning and more knowledge but she soon realizes her place in the alley is important and becomes content with her work. She also learns that there are different kinds of knowledge. I think that Matilda Bone is a good book that is well written with a fast pace and great characters. This book is descriptive and takes readers into Matilda's world and her situations, problems, and worries. I highly recommend this book to preteens because the story can be hard for younger children to understand. Matilda's worries and situations will keep you reading!

When (in Medieval England) 14-year-old Matilda is apprenticed to Red Peg, the bonesetter, she feels like a duck among chickens. Raised to read French and Latin, to pray often and mortify the flesh, she suddenly finds herself in a world where literacy is vanishingly rare and not appreciated, where prayer is ignored and the flesh taken seriously. She begins to learn that prayer and religion is not the answer, but down-to-earth action is.This book is a marvelous window into medieval medicine (if that is not too grand of a word to use for it) and life in general. In it we meet a pompous stargazing doctor, an ill trained but capable woman physician, a leech, a near-sighted apothecary, and a host of others. The author added an interesting appendix on her research into medieval medicine, complete with a short bibliography, should you wish to read more on the subject.I must confess myself to being somewhat uncomfortable with the author's treatment of medieval Christianity, but I do not believe that her characters acted at all out of character for medieval people. So, I do recommend this short, but fascinating book.

As an adult that eagerly anticipates each Cushman novel and devours each with delight, "Matilda Bone" should please fans of "Catherine, Called Birdy" and the "Midwife's Apprentice" Cushman excels in female protagonists secure in one world that circumstances thrust into another where they have to learn new skills and new ways of thinking in order to successfully cope and "Matilda" is no exception. Fourteen-year-old Matilda, secure on a medieval English manor,where the manor priest has raised her making her fluent in Latin, writing and religion is suddenly dropped by her respected priest on the doorstep of Peg the Bonesetter, where all her knowledge, piety, and mind-set is of no use in Peg's real world. Matilda prays to her well-known saints to save her, but the saints have no pity and no time for her. How Matilda slowly learns her way around real world London and that book knowledge is no replacement for experience, Cushman presents in her usual realism with a sense of humor style. Cushman is so comfortable with the world of medieval England that the details of life should delight readers rather than putting them off. Some fans of the Harry Potter series might enjoy this book while awaiting for the next book in the series. I thought the book over too soon and wish for the further adventures of Matilda.

I was so happy when I got this book, because I've been waiting for a new novel from Karen Cushman ever since The Ballad of Lucy Whipple came out, and that was back in 1996. Matilda Bone does not dissapoint. Some professional reviewers have called Matilda whiny and unlikeable, but I disagree. I came to care about Matilda, and watching her learn and grow. In fact, I devoured this book in one setting. The story is about fourteen-year-old Matilda, who was raised on a manor in the Middle Ages after her mother runs off and her father dies. For the most part, her bringing up is handled by a priest who tells her that little more that piety matters. So when she comes to Blood and Bone Alley to work as an apprentice to Red Peg the Bonesetter, she can do little else but believe that since the people she is surrounded by do not pray constantly, they are ungodly. I could understand Matilda's unhappiness - she was torn from the only home she knew, and her extrene religious views were a byproduct of her upbringing. Don't listen to the professional reviewers; I'm a fifteen-year-old reader, and I loved this book!