Karen Cushman
Author of Catherine, Called Birdy
About the Author
Karen Cushman was born on October 4, 1941 and grew up in a working-class family in Chicago, but never put much thought into becoming a writer. Though she wrote poetry and plays as a child, Cushman didn't begin writing professionally for young adults until she was fifty. She holds an MA in both show more Human Behavior and Museum Studies. Cushman has always been interested in history. It was this interest that led her to her research into medieval England and its culture, which led to both Catherine, Called Birdy, a Newbery Honor Book, and The Midwife's Apprentice, her second book and winner of the prestigious Newbery Award in 1996. Both Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice have earned many awards and honors including the Gold Kite Award for Fiction from the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and was chosen as one of School Library Journal's Best Books of the Year. Cushman's work has also been recognized for excellence by Horn Book, Parenting Magazine, Hungry Mind Review, and the American Library Association. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Author Karen Cushman at the 2016 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53330002
Works by Karen Cushman
Associated Works
Totally Middle School: Tales of Friends, Family, and Fitting In (2018) — Contributor — 21 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1941-10-04
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Stanford University (MA - Human Behavior, MA - Museum Studies)
- Occupations
- novelist
adjunct professor - Organizations
- John F. Kennedy University (Assistant Director - Museum Studies Department)
- Relationships
- Cushman, Philip (husband)
- Short biography
- According to Karen Cushman's web site: When I was little, my Polish grandpa took me for walks through the alleys of Chicago. I would collect treasures — rubber bands and marbles, perfectly good pencils, maple leaves and robins’ eggs — and take them home to put in a box under my bed. I think that’s what being a writer is like. The treasures I collect now are bits of information fantasies memories, and imaginings, and I take them and put them in a story.
I write historical fiction, novels that may be about made up characters and events but take place in a real time or place. - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Places of residence
- Vashon Island, Washington, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Discussions
Found: Help find a book in Name that Book (March 2022)
Reviews
God’s thumbs! This book was a riot. Highly recommend for 13 readers who complain about books being too “boring,” because they will not be bored reading this one. Set in 1290 and written in diary entry form, this book follows a year in the life of 13 year old Catherine. Catherine’s father is doing everything he can to marry her off, and she is doing everything she can to resist his efforts. As soon as I read the first diary entry, I knew that I would love this book:
12th Day of show more September
“I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.”
You can’t help but root for Catherine’s snarky, irreverent teenage self to find a way out of her predicament! I loved that Karen Cushman keeps things super realistic in regards to the historical time period. This could totally be an assigned book for a history class; there’s a lot of historical info to glean here for readers. I was also dying at the way Cushman includes what feast day it is at the beginning of the diary entries, and what saint each one is connected to, and the bizarre, insane things they are known for doing. Making it my mission in life to get every teen to read this! show less
12th Day of show more September
“I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.”
You can’t help but root for Catherine’s snarky, irreverent teenage self to find a way out of her predicament! I loved that Karen Cushman keeps things super realistic in regards to the historical time period. This could totally be an assigned book for a history class; there’s a lot of historical info to glean here for readers. I was also dying at the way Cushman includes what feast day it is at the beginning of the diary entries, and what saint each one is connected to, and the bizarre, insane things they are known for doing. Making it my mission in life to get every teen to read this! show less
I've been reading Cushman's books since I was nine or ten and received Catherine, Called Birdy as my Scholastic book of the month. She's not a hugely prolific author, so I just check every few years for new books. However much I love Cushman's books I might have hesitated if I'd read the description of this one and realized it was about a physically disabled girl, as disability is often handled very poorly, particularly in historical settings. (I'm disabled myself.)
Cushman soon erased all of show more my doubts. She was so smart in how she went about writing this. First, she chose a real condition and researched it - hip dysplasia, which can be corrected without too much trouble, but if left means the legs don't develop in the usual way and the person is left crippled and in pain. This often results from a certain type of breech birth, and of course couldn't be corrected in the early Elizabethan period when this book is set. Cushman's choice to allow Meggy to be angry, at other people, not at herself or necessarily because of her disability, was equally wondrous. In fiction, there are two prominent disabled tropes - the Pollyanna and the bitter cripple. We are rarely allowed to be outspoken and angry and grouchy and be a protagonist. Meggy's disability impacts how she goes about things but it has little to nothing to do with the main plot of the book. Third, Cushman lets Meggy sometimes use typical historical perceptions of disability as a result of curses or demonic possession to her own advantage when trying to get people to leave her alone (I say historical, but the Catholic church still wasn't accepting men with epilepsy into the priesthood in the 1960s due to the old 'demonic possession' explanation).
After Meggy's grandmother dies, her mother sends her to London to live with her father, who she doesn't know. He's an alchemist and takes little notice of her, never even using her name. As she learns the streets and makes herself useful running errands, she befriends a variety of people. Soon she overhears men buying poison from her father with the intent of killing an Earl. She's shocked and tries to talk her father out of it, but soon must find a way to foil the plot herself.
I really loved this book, and I'm so relieved and pleased that Cushman took this representation seriously. My love for her remains undiminished. show less
Cushman soon erased all of show more my doubts. She was so smart in how she went about writing this. First, she chose a real condition and researched it - hip dysplasia, which can be corrected without too much trouble, but if left means the legs don't develop in the usual way and the person is left crippled and in pain. This often results from a certain type of breech birth, and of course couldn't be corrected in the early Elizabethan period when this book is set. Cushman's choice to allow Meggy to be angry, at other people, not at herself or necessarily because of her disability, was equally wondrous. In fiction, there are two prominent disabled tropes - the Pollyanna and the bitter cripple. We are rarely allowed to be outspoken and angry and grouchy and be a protagonist. Meggy's disability impacts how she goes about things but it has little to nothing to do with the main plot of the book. Third, Cushman lets Meggy sometimes use typical historical perceptions of disability as a result of curses or demonic possession to her own advantage when trying to get people to leave her alone (I say historical, but the Catholic church still wasn't accepting men with epilepsy into the priesthood in the 1960s due to the old 'demonic possession' explanation).
After Meggy's grandmother dies, her mother sends her to London to live with her father, who she doesn't know. He's an alchemist and takes little notice of her, never even using her name. As she learns the streets and makes herself useful running errands, she befriends a variety of people. Soon she overhears men buying poison from her father with the intent of killing an Earl. She's shocked and tries to talk her father out of it, but soon must find a way to foil the plot herself.
I really loved this book, and I'm so relieved and pleased that Cushman took this representation seriously. My love for her remains undiminished. show less
I was expecting excellent historical fiction based in the middle ages. I was expecting a "spirited" young woman protagonist. I wasn't expecting this book to be hilarious -- laugh out loud funny. Catherine has a very pragmatic personality, which leads her into all sorts of hijinks. She's a hellion, with an appreciation for fart jokes and a stubborn streak that will not bow nor quit for any reason. Marvelous.
"Ye toads and vipers," the girl said, as her granny often had, "ye toads and vipers," and she snuffled a great snuffle that echoed in the empty room."
It is 16th Century Elizabethan London and 13 year old Meggy Swann, with her deformed legs and walking sticks, has just arrived from the country to live with the cold and distant father she has never met. But once this father, the odd and unfriendly Alchemist, realizes she is both deformed and female, Meggy is left to fend for herself-- show more virtually and then literally abandoned-- her only friend the equally bad tempered goose named Louise. But Karen Cushman's hallmark is the strong female character and Meggy is at the top of the list. She makes her way-- finding friends and allies and creating a life for herself that is both positive and believable within her historic context. I love Cushman-- for her strong female characters, clever and likable as well as for the beautiful and luscious language she employs to carry us away. Great for girls and anglophiles and lovers of Shakespearean insults. show less
It is 16th Century Elizabethan London and 13 year old Meggy Swann, with her deformed legs and walking sticks, has just arrived from the country to live with the cold and distant father she has never met. But once this father, the odd and unfriendly Alchemist, realizes she is both deformed and female, Meggy is left to fend for herself-- show more virtually and then literally abandoned-- her only friend the equally bad tempered goose named Louise. But Karen Cushman's hallmark is the strong female character and Meggy is at the top of the list. She makes her way-- finding friends and allies and creating a life for herself that is both positive and believable within her historic context. I love Cushman-- for her strong female characters, clever and likable as well as for the beautiful and luscious language she employs to carry us away. Great for girls and anglophiles and lovers of Shakespearean insults. show less
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- Also by
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- Rating
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