Catherine, Called Birdy

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 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 show more 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 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.

At the encouragement of her brother, a monk, and with the blessing of her mother, the young lady Catherine, daughter of a knight begins to keep a diary. She is not enthusiastic about the task.

12TH DAY OF 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.

13TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER
My father must suffer from ale head this day, for he cracked me twice before dinner instead of once. I hope his angry liver bursts.

14TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER
Tangled my spinning again. Corpus bones, what a torture.

15TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER
Today the sun shone and the villagers sowed hay, gathered apples, and pulled fish from the stream. I, trapped inside, spent two hours embroidering a cloth for the show more church and three hours picking out my stitches after my mother saw it. I wish I were a villager.

…

19TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER
I am delivered! My mother and I have made a bargain. I may forgo spinning as long as I write this account for Edward. My mother is not much for writing but has it in her heart to please Edward, especially now he is gone to be a monk, and I would do worse things to escape the foolish boredom of spinning. So I will write.

What follows will be my book-the book of Catherine, called Little Bird or Birdy, daughter of Rollo and the lady Aislinn, sister to Thomas, Edward, and the abominable Robert, of the village of Stonebridge in the shire of Lincoln, in the country of England, in the hands of God. Begun this 19th day of September in the year of Our Lord 1290, the fourteenth year of my life. The skins are my father's, left over from the household accounts, and the ink also. The writing I learned of my brother Edward, but the words are my own.

As Birdy continues her diary, it becomes increasingly clear that she is not at all happy with her station in life, especially when her father tries to marry her off. But the rambunctious young lady has her own plans. She contemplates becoming a monk or a wandering minstrel, or anything but the wife of a noble condemned to spinning, childbearing, and putting up with a husband. She’d rather be a goatheard. In fact, she thinks Perkin the goat boy who lives with his granny and his goats is far better company and more intelligent, than the suitors that her father is trying to arrange for her to marry. She got rid of one of them by waiting until he went outside to the privy, and she shut him in and set fire to it. She just meant to smoke him out, but when he escaped sans pants to the general amusement of all that witnessed his humiliation, that match was off.

Filled with fascinating details of medieval life, the strong willed Catherine’s description of her family, village and behavior of her peers and commoners and their doings is laugh out loud hilarious. show less

I wish I had read Catherine, Called Birdy when I was Birdy's age - nearly 14 - because I would have been fascinated by all the revelations about life in a manor house in the late 13th century, and I also would have felt more optimistic about Birdy's future.
Reading it as an adult, I am less surprised by the details, and more aware of how many girls have faced the prospect of marriage at such a young age. Of how many girls still face such a prospect. It's not just something that's comfortably in the past.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed how spirited Birdy is, how determined she is to resist her parents' plans for her. Catherine, Called Birdy does an excellent job of capturing her world and her perspective of it, and the wavering experience of show more being caught between childhood and adulthood.

23rd day of September
There was a hanging in Riverford today. I am being punished for impudence again, so was not allowed to go. I am near fourteen and have never yet seen a hanging. My life is barren. show less

This was a book that was always around when I was young, but I never picked it up. More fool me, because it was an excellent book. I loved the narrative voice; Catherine sounds exactly like I would have at that age. She regularly made me laugh out loud with a well-placed wisecrack or a devastatingly direct statement. I tore through this in a day and really enjoyed it. Would recommend it for those looking for teen historical fiction.

Surprisingly hilarious! I listened to the audiobook in anticipation of the movie version coming soon. The best part of this book is Birdy's sharp, grumpy, occasionally wise voice. Like a modern teenager, she seems to be annoyed by everything, particularly the limits put on her as a girl. Unlike a modern teenager, she and her community are at the mercy of the politics of the Middle Ages. Her father intends to marry her off regardless of Birdy's wishes. She manages to trick her suitors into rejecting her, but she can't escape her fate.

As Cushman writes in the author's note, in those days you were born into a certain role and you had little choice but to play it. This is not a book with a modern moral like "You can be whatever you want to show more be if you work hard." Instead, this book imagines how it might have felt for a fiery young lady to be so constrained and powerless. How can she accept such a life?

The unexpected delights of this book are many. It's pretty gross (they eat a lot of eel pie, there are illnesses, injuries, disgusting remedies, so many fleas, etc.). I really enjoyed hearing about all the obscure saints and what they were sainted for. So strange and funny the way Birdy deadpans their miraculous achievements.

The book is also realistically dark like when Birdy attends a hanging. She's excited to see a criminal punished but it's just young boys and it's horrible.

I think the movie will have to give this story a stronger plot. I'm also really confused about the casting of Birdy's father. In the book Birdy describes him as a nasty beast, but he's played by Andrew Scott (AKA hot priest from Fleabag). Does not compute. show less

This was my favorite book when I was young. For years, it was just about the only book I would read independently. Reading it now I can see why I liked it so much. It’s so funny! It doesn’t hurt that the chapters/diary entries are short. And I love Birdy herself. She is spunky, creative and plucky.

I appreciate and understand so much more about this book as an adult. This is not a romanticized middle ages (though not every 14-year-old girl was fortunate to have her fat, middle-aged betrothed die before the wedding). There are fleas, dirt, and bad hygiene. Birdy has little to no control over her life. But this doesn’t prevent her from being a strong female character. She spends much of the book struggling against her lot in life. show more She cannot do what she wants, she cannot choose who she marries, but she realizes that she can control her attitude and how she lives the parts of life given to her. show less