I've started reading Little Bird's story. The edition I'm enjoying has a nice introduction from Linda Sue Park. You're right, it is surprisingly funny. And smart, apparently well-researched, etc. I don't know that I like either the classic cover or the new cartoony one, though.
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I'm much further along now, still enjoying it even though it's gotten more serious, and have noticed something.

This girl would have made a great scientist if she'd been born seven centuries later. The questions she asks show that she's got an inquiring, skeptical, lively intelligence. I think that educators could talk this up to kids as a proto STEM book as well as HF. And proto-feminism, too.
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Done. I would never have read this if not for this club,* so, thank you to whomever it was who first set up the plan to read all the Newbery books. I think that I would have liked, but not loved, this when I was young, too.

I don't know if all editions include back matter, with bibliography, but that is interesting too.

(Newbery 'club' in Children's Books group here on goodreads.) ( )

I've owned this book for years and have read it a few times, it's always a treat. It was neat having a different perspective of being a "lady" and not fitting in.


Would fit The 52 Book Club's 2021 prompts:
10 - Related to the Word Fire
16 - Set Before the 17th Century
32 - A Selfish Character
42 - An Epistolary
47 - A Character With a Disability ( )

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 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. ( )

In 13th century Britain, Birdy’s options are limited: she will be married off as her father wills (though she manages to pull off a few pranks to discourage some suitors). Her brother has given her a journal to chronicle her days, hoping that it will help her become more mature and thoughtful. Over the course of a year, her entries do show her growth of character as she experiences the ups and downs of medieval life.

I think I may have been a teenager myself last time I read this book. I appreciated it very much this time through, probably more that I did at first reading (though I’ve always been a Cushman fan). The writing is top notch, and the author brings to life Birdy’s world, so different from our own. ( )

As an audio book read by a delightful young actress, Catherine transported me to another time and place. Made for a few interesting conversations with my teenage daughter.

Re-read (listened) when the title came up as a Lena Dunham production for screen. How will this go? ( )

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. ( )

This is a YA novel that I felt was completely interesting and perfectly suitable for this 82 year old reader. ( )

Interesting. It's entirely written in diary entries by Birdy, a 13th-century knight's daughter. She's mostly complaining about her chores and about the fact that her father will be marrying her off for the family's benefit. Still, there's a lot of description of what life was like then embedded in the entries - her chores show some of how things worked, and what events went on as the seasons changed. It's an era I know something about, and the story tells it pretty straightforwardly. It didn't fascinate me - possibly because I do know the era, I wasn't learning much new - but it was definitely worth reading. ( )

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. ( )

Catherine is a free-spirited knight's daughter in thirteenth century England. At the request of her older brother she keeps a journal for a year, and so the reader gets a view of life during the Middle Ages.

I enjoyed this work, and how the author developed Catherine from a petulant child into a more mature maiden, but still "Birdy". ( )

I love Karen Cushman's books and this was very good. However, it was a bit much on the details for me. I liked the other books better. The heroine in the story has quite an attitude so students reading this who emulate characters in stories may also show some attitude (one of my students did this), so teachers and parents be advised if your child takes stories to heart.

True to history, true to human character, interesting, valid, and amazing. ( )

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 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. ( )

A classic YA historical fiction. I hate the book cover. ( )

Oh my.... A 14 year old girl from 13th century - a child and a noble and (once again) a girl, literate enough to write a cute little diary?... Should be filed under sci-fi or at least AU.

Lets confuse our children even more, because a bunch of them already believing that women could participate in ancient Greece Olympics is not enough (thanks, Zena)!

I absolutely love this book. Very inventive historical fiction. Cushman takes readers into middle ages England through the viewpoint of a young girl who is quite the insightful, temperamental spitfire. At the heart of the story is her fight against the determined efforts of her father to make a good marriage deal for her. Written as short diary entries, this is a window into life in these times while providing a very entertaining and yet poignant story. A highly recommended read. ( )

This is an epistolary YA novel that’s meant to accurately portray the life of a young lady in 12XX. She’s not a peasant, but she’s certainly no princess in a castle. She has a nice manor and some servants, but what this girl really wants, she can’t seem to get – freedom.

She’s supposed to sew, cook, and do medicine (which involved a lot of herbs), but those are only the in-between times of babymaking. There’s a lot of praying and going to church, as well as playing pranks on others (I think at one point she throws her sewing down the outhouse). Her central conflict comes from loathing the idea of being married off to some stranger. And there are several dinners being introduced to potential suitors that she sabotages. She has more fun playing with the peasant children her age. But they’re doomed to live a life of servitude, and she’s destined to be married off.

I really liked Karen Cushman’s other book The Midwife’s Apprentice which was also period-accurate. I would say this one is better, maybe because it’s simpler. There is no arching plot, since it’s a “slice of life” story. You get to see more of the “typical” events, such as the birthing of a baby, a wedding, traveling Jews. She’s a surprisingly relatable teenager for living over 800 years ago. I think it’s because she’s juuuust outside of adulthood, when she would be all reverent and polite. Instead we get to see her in that transition of child to adult and it’s interesting. Plus, like The Midwife’s Apprentice, it’s rich with medieval history and factoids. I highly recommend it. ( )

A one year diary of a medieval girl, a lady in a lower knight's manor. She is 13/14 and longs for an independence that no one had in the medieval English world. Her father (the beast) is desperate to marry her off to somebody - anybody. She is equally determined not to marry whatever swine her father chooses.
Other than the ongoing battle with her horror of a father about marriage, there is little ongoing story. Much of the book is simply a commentary on life in 11th century England.
Each day's entry is introduced with a note on a saint. Reading these notes, I wonder at the appeal of sainthood. It seems that most saints died torturous deaths. Seems that would be a strong argument against becoming a Christian rather than weighing in favor the religion. ( )

I have fond memories reading this book at recess in the 4th grade. I thought the cover made me look sophisticated. Reading books on top of the monkey bars did not get me invited back to the four square team, believe it or not. ( )

Set in the middle ages, this book is written in diary format. Catherine writes about her life as a woman in medieval times...From trying to avoid an arranged marriage to a "gruesome" man to some of the hygiene issues women faced, this book gives modern readers a glance into the life of a young woman and the trials she faced in 13th century England. "The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off." ( )

I remember seeing this all the time in my school library and in the Scholastic book order forms I would get in school but I never picked it up until I was an adult. It's about Catherine, who is nicknamed Birdy because she keeps so many pet birds, a girl living in medieval England. She records her life and accounts in a diary which surprisingly sounds like it could be written by a modern person. She hates the traditional feminine trappings of the middle ages like embroidery and marriage. She is betrothed to a horrendous and gross man twice her age, she'd rather become a knight than get married to an oaf. I really enjoyed reading this, I liked the character of Birdy and it seemed like Cushman enjoys writing about the middle ages and really did her research about the time period. I recommend this book for readers in grades 3 or 4 and up. I think it's an important addition to any library because there aren't many juvenile fiction books for kids set in the middle ages that aren't King Arthur or that are about women. It's aged pretty well given the time period it's set and a story I think young readers, especially young female readers, can relate to. It would make a great discussion in school about comparisons between present day and medieval times, like what is different and what has remained the same. ( )

Catherine is a girl of marriageable age in medieval England, and she demonstrably doesn't want to. Get married off to some oaf, that is. So, she plays all sorts of pranks on her suitors and gets up to other shenanigans, all while worrying about her pregnant mother and avoiding her embroidery.
Another spunky female character born out of her time, and I was disappointed in the ending, which fizzled and didn't really follow with how her character had been drawn throughout the narrative. *shrug* ( )

She's not your average damsel in distress...

I always associated this book with [b:Ella Enchanted|24337|Ella Enchanted|Gail Carson Levine|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1338459167s/24337.jpg|2485462], given that both featured fantastic lady leads who resist the order of things, Catherine's being impended by the social climate for women in the 13th century and Ella's taking the form of the obedience curse. It's great for really not softening too much of the world--the gruesome execution where all the vendors are out and it's treated like an event which still makes Catherine sick, the time she spends in the privy avoiding people that annoy here, the fact that the meat is sometimes a little rotting, the fact that her uncle back from the Crusades brings her the first orange she's ever seen. This was also the book that introduced me to the concept of Saints' Feasts because I grew up only knowing that you could be different kinds of Protestant and thought Catholics were a bit mythic... actually pretty much until I hit university.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24137.Catherine_Called_Birdy# ( )

I like this book, but I have mixed opinions about it. Catherine talks very harshly to her father, but I can understand as a young woman how she feels. As I was reading the book, I was imagining myself as being Catherine. This book is historically accurate in terms of describing the setting and talking about social settings. ( )

"Have you all your teeth?
Is your breath sweet or fowl?
Are you a good eater?
What color is your hair when it is clean?
How are your sewing and your bowels and your conversation?" ( )