What do You think about Matilda Bone (2002)?
CUSHMAN, Karen. Matilda Bone. 167p. Dell Yearling. 2000. ISBN: 0-440-41822-4.When we meet Matilda she is in a state of disbelief. She has just been dropped off at the end of Blood and Bone Alley, where she is to find her new home and place of apprenticeship with Red Peg the Bonesetter. Matilda is in constant hope that Father Leufredus, her guardian and teacher since she became orphaned, will come back for her. He has provided her a medieval religious education; she knows Latin and the lives of all the saints and doesn’t want anything to do with her new life and neighbors. Every day is busy at Peg’s shop and Matilda works hard to learn new skills, usually the hard way. Through Peg’s patience, wisdom and kindness Matilda begins to see a world that the “good” Father had never mentioned. I loved this story of a young girl who learns to open her heart in spite of what her brain is telling her with an amusing description of what it was like to live at that time.
—Mary Sampson
I found Matilda Bone on a list of feminist novels for girls. Karen Cushman, whom I read and did not fully appreciate as an eight and nine year old, tells the charming and quaint story of Matilda, a girl who aspires to achieve saintly status via the influential teachings of a priest who imparts the importance of being "meek and obedient". When Matilda finds herself in a new place, where bodily presence is not disregarded or sinful, where women are wise and learned, where science is trusted, where life on earth is just as important as the after-life, readers get a truly pleasing read that is quick but still strong in its message. I also really appreciated the research on the Middle Ages that Cushman provides at the very end. I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes reading young adult novels that don't include love-triangles and vapid characters. It's a really short but really fun read.
—Tahira
The book “Matilda Bone” by author Karen Cushman, talks about how Matilda is used to an easier way of living. She would prefer to live in a manor house with Father Leufredus than to live with a bone setter, because in the manor she got everything she wanted, and she studied Latin and the lives of the Saints that she adored. But one day she is brought to live with a local bone setter who is called Mistress Pig. She soon finds out that her life will be filled with the scent of healing herbs, broken bones, leeches and bloodletting, and many abrupt lessons about common life in a medieval village. Matilda then finds how hard and tough it is to live and work alone without receiving aid from others like what she used to get in the manor house, but she learns a lot of new things and lessons and meets new friends eventually. "I really loved and enjoyed this book because it teaches me a lesson about how responsible a person has to be when he/she has to find a way to survive with out receiving help from anyone. And I recommend this story to anyone who likes to read adventurous and religious stories."
—Louai Alfaori
