Catherine, Called Birdy: Dry and Boring?

Yes, sigh. I, too, have been missing the discussions. So I'll toss out
a question and see if we have lurking nibblers out there.

As probably everyone knows, I'm teaching adolescent lit. for the first time this semester. The first book we read was CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY. Now I should say that my own (then) 12-year-old daughter loved this book, wanted me to buy her her own copy, got her friends (mostly American Girl series lovers) to read it, has re-read it several times. To my surprise, my class (mostly sophomores-seniors, English majors) declared CATHERINE to be "dry and boring." Of course, I wanted to know if they had any theories about what the problem was. In fact, I said something like... "Looking at this from a writer's standpoint, I keep thinking about what I think about as I sit at my computer, and I know--for sure--that no writer sits down to write a boring book. When I think about my stories, I'm thinking about things like putting my character into a predicament, upping the stakes, starting those questions going of 'what's going to happen to this person?' Typical conversation about story says that if you've created a character your readers care about and put that character into a tense situation, your reader is going to be hooked. In this case, though, you guys weren't hooked. Any idea what happened?"

Their theory: too many characters the reader can't keep straight...too little action...too much every day being the same.

Any thoughts or reactions or insights about the un-taut tension line?

June Cummins Lewis commented on her students' sense that *Catherine Called Birdy* was dry and boring and wondered why.

It somewhat sounds as if they approached the book from a concept of plot narrowly construed, and it is certainly true that the "plot" of the book develops rather slowly and haphazardly if at all. What seems to me most valuable and/or interesting in this novel is Birdy's voice - her rebellious response to her father, her resistance to everyone else's attempts to define her, her questioning of received wisdom (I especially like her comments on the various saints' days). The colorful treatment of everyday life in the middle ages, presented from a decidedly late-20th-century perspective (this is an example of a historical novel that could not have been written by someone from the period it depicts), are also delightful. Plot? Every reader knows from the beginning that she is not going to marry against her will - so there really isn't any tension there. The interest is in the things she does and learns along the way.

I began reading this book when I brought it home and my six-year-old daughter became fascinated by its cover and wanted it read aloud. The read-aloud forced me to focus on voice from the beginning, and this may have colored my view. She lost interest in it after a couple of months (book-months, that is, not months in the real world), but I continued to read for the voice of the character.

There are a couple of stretches where nothing happens and Birdy simply says, "Nothing happened." But there are few enough of these that "boring" seems an inappropriate term.

I've been a real lurker on child-lit, but the comments on Birdy being "boring," brought me out. I love that book for the reasons that Wally stated so well. I am curious too as to what "boring" means in this case.

Since children's lit classes traditionally are heavily populated with female students, I assume that women, especially, would take a hearty and energeticinterest in that story. It looks at the coming of age of a young brash independent spirited woman and by reflection how all young adults usually have to "adjust", find their way, etc... within what exists as acceptable behavior, be they female or male. Even rejection of that role brings with it some recognition that the role does exist.

Birdy's dry commentary I really enjoyed as wickedly funny. This book and Shabanu are two of my favorites since I began working as a curriculum materials librarian about 6 years ago. So I'm curious about reactions from others in the world of children's lit classes and in real life schools to Birdy. Are other students equally enthusiastic or blase when introduced to Birdy as a class assignment, etc...?

To Jane Kurtz,

Interesting response to _Catherine, Called Birdy_ from your class. Could they have been of an age that needs to distance themselves from the concerns of Catherine's age. Could it have been too close for comfort? But then, they liked other books with similar concerns, I suppose. Many adults appreciate it so and your daughter and her peers do as well.

Yes, I was completely caught off-guard, myself. My students cover quite an age range, from what we think of as "typical" college age to people with their own adolescent children. The comments about the book being boring came out in written reader responses, their first responses to the book, before any class discussion. Once I raised the issue, only one student in the whole class was willing to defend the book as "fascinating." I have nothing else to compare their response to, yet, since I started with Catherine, assuming it was a "winner," and since SHABANU didn't come in at the bookstore yet. One woman did read a library copy of SHABANU and report to the class that it was "much better" than CATHERINE.

I think it's interesting the way the thread on reader-response theory and the question I raised about CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY are converging. Not sure what sense it makes to call my students' reaction "inappropriate," though I would agree it was disconcerting. I'm curious about what my students are bringing or not bringing to this book that is making it such a different reading experience than it was for me or my daughter or those who've spoken up so far. I think Wally is right that it's Catherine's voice that is so compelling. Why isn't it, for them? And is this a usual response? I only had one student who found the book "fascinating."

The bookstore didn't get copies of SHABANU, the next book, in, yet (sigh) but the one woman who read the library's copy reported to the class that it was "much better," for whatever that adds to people's thinking. And yes, the assumption that my class is made up of mostly women is correct--some are young; some have adolescent children of their own.

One of the issues we should be considering here is often lost sight of.

The research Doug Vipond and I did on "literary reading" back in the mid-eighties suggested that the way the text was situated in the first set of readings gave it different status as an utterance than the second one. It's not _just_ that students assigned a text are more likely to be resistant (or less apt to be engaged) and thus find it boring; it's that certain texts (for certain readers) seem to need the infusion of "voice" that comes (for instance) with reading it in a family situation, having someone else recommend it, or (most powerful) having it read aloud. Our readers found the John Updike story "A&P" (often anthologized; lots of people expect it to be particularly appropriate to adolescents) to be boring and choppy and plotless and too full of details, and we think they tended to find it that way because the situation pushed them toward reading it either for information or for the plot ("information-driven" or "story-driven" reading) rather than trying to respond as though a human being were telling them the story because he thought it significant or moving. Jane Kurtz's question is, our research would suggest, right on:

"Of course, I wanted to know if they had any theories about what the problem was. In fact, I said something like... "Looking at this from a writer's standpoint, I keep thinking about what I think about as I sit at my computer, and I know--for sure--that no writer sits down to write a boring book."

But for many readers, that writer really doesn't exist until she acquires a voice, and asking this question won't, I think, help most of them to that act of imagining a teller of the story that makes the book alive.

"Their theory: too many characters the reader can't keep straight...too little action...too much every day being the same."

This is a classic expression of what Doug and I would have called "story-driven reading." Perfectly appropriate to lots of text -- obviously not to _Catherine_.

(If you want to know more about that research, by the way, there are references to various publications on my home page.)

Hello -- I am fairly new to this list, but could not resist commenting on the question about responses of children's lit students to _Catherine, Called Birdy_. I am a graduate student in Information Sciences with a concentration in Youth Services (school libraries), and the required children's literature class now uses this book.

When I read "Birdy" last fall for pleasure, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but speaking as a critic I agree that the repetitions do not seem to detract too much from the novel as a whole. While there are a variety of characters mentioned, the focus tends to remain on Catherine and her immediate family/friends (Perkin, her father, etcetera) so I do not feel that the number of characters "damages" the book. In addition, I have just read _The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle_ by Avi, and find the two books similar in their use of historical setting, strong female narrators, and journals as a means of measuring change (although Charlotte's journal does not appear in its precise format as does Catherine's). Both young women offer an interesting commentary on the social requirements of their eras. It would be interesting to know whether any students have had negative (or positive) reactions to this book as well, since it has quite a few characters (albeit less than Birdy) but more "action."

Like others, I'm surprised by the reaction -- I found this an extremely enjoyable read and quite a character study -- not at all dry.

I'm finding this discussion on Catherine, Called Birdy most interesting. I did not find the book boring, and in fact I read it through quickly. I find Russ Hunt's point about context and expectations very relevant to my response to the book. It was a Newbery honor book and everyone (on this list) had been talking about how good it was, so I was expecting an outstanding book. My expectations were perhaps so high that they were bound to be disappointed.

Jane's students may be responding that it is "boring," for similar reasons. Usually when a book is assigned reading, one assumes that it is a book "worth studying," that it is perhaps a book chosen because it is outstanding for some reason. I've had similar reactions when I've assigned particular works or works by a particular author: He or she is O.K., but why do we have to read this -- so and so is just as good. Or, so and so is better!

The students who thought it was boring may also have been expecting a different kind of book. Most historical novels tend to be adventure stories, and that might be what they expected. I often get the response that "nothing happened" when a book is more a family story or a psychological story than an adventure story.

I agree with Wally that Catherine's lively voice is perhaps the key attraction of the book. It is also the aspect that bothers me the most, however, because (does the fact that my B.A. was in history have anything to do with this?) it distorts the historical period. While part of me says I should just let up and enjoy the anachronism in the character -- and I do the same with Avi's Charlotte Doyle -- and the same with Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly -- part of me cringes at the idea that characters can somehow escape the confines of their cultures.

We, as late twentieth century women might say, "I wouldn't have put up with that!" when reading about our foremothers, but history shows us that most women either put up with or were shut up or killed for defiance of conventions. Take a look at Patricia Clapp's I'm Deborah Sampson for the realistic depiction of how the world reacted to one woman's disguising herself as a man and fight in the American Revolution.

My inclination, if a writer wants to show the difference in the mores of different time periods, would be to suggest fantasy, time slip or time travel. Stories that put a twentieth-century sensibility into a thirteenth-century character also communicate elitism. Had we lived in those dark, ignorant, beknighted times, these stories seems to say, we would somehow have known better, we would have been enlightened ones.

As a Public Librarian...on the front line...I am afraid I have to wonder about students in general. Too many want the shortest, the quick read, the simple-minded, most TV-like when they come to chose books for class reading Even the best students get over-loaded...but I even question reading ability. No one seems to be able to read quickly...a youth novel a night is light reading for me. I am rushing this but does anyone else feel that the problem with "class reading" is the problem with Birdy. Pleasure reading is a pleasure even for students it seems.

I hesitate to add my tuppence to the discussion of a book I haven't read, but for what it is worth,

--- apart from one series of textbooks (Reading and Thinking), which was then discontinued on the grounds that it was too difficult, I loathed most things we were given to read at school, and *hated* having to say why I enjoyed or disliked anything even more than pretending to go along with the received opinion that this or that recommended reading was good.

--- if Peter Hunt (whom I used to know before he became a grand old man in children's literature and was just a bibliographer) is serious about all books responding to "literary" readings with the implication that all books are equal, that the reader creates value and that all readers are equal, it will have the effect on confirming what ordinary academia thinks, viz. children's books are a soft option and people who study them are soft in the head

--- notions such as canon-formation and the selective tradition and so on are relevant to what "makes" a book, even a book for children, good or bad for that bourgeois construct the common reader, but surely there are empirical ways of proving that Blyton (who has her own delights, and does not write badly or tritely all the time ) is at a lower level than similar authors in similar genres?

--- are you aware of the fight that seems to be raging in Britain between Alderson and Hunt (in the pages of the CHBS newsletter)?

--- of course some readers need a "reading aloud" to make a book come alive, and what pleases at one time need not please at another (see my Mrs Molesworth's dictum in the 1890s that children, she had gound by experience, rather enjoyed a book story retold by voice).

--- I like that notion of story-driven reading: is that why modern readers of popular fiction and TV, glutted by fast paced action, cannot read Yonge?

I will check your homepage to see your work.

NB I am not allowed to "Post" things, so am writing to you, but if you wish to put this on that mechanism that makes this available to everyone, that's fine by me (there's nothing all that valuable in it).

On Jan 31, 2:46pm, linnea m hendrickson wrote:

"I'm finding this discussion on Catherine, Called Birdy most interesting. I did not find the book boring, and in fact I read it through quickly. I find Russ Hunt's point about context and expectations very relevant to my response to the book...(quoted text snipped by f-r-)"

Here's another thought - perhaps the very fact that the book was a Newbery honor put the students off. I remember feeling decidedly put off by most award winning historical fiction--in fact, I tried to go back and read some of the old Newbery's I'd missed as a child and it was psychologically excruciating! The association is not always a good one.

Although I loved most of _Catherine Called Birdy_, I must admit to having gotten bogged down in the middle. I felt the story needed more action, that it achieved realism at the cost of some necessary tension. It does still remain funny though, which perhaps is enough to keep some readers feeling entertained or interested.

More thoughts on Jane K's students' unenthusiastic response to _Catherine_. One--probably unhelpful--thought is just that some classes are like that. (Last term, after telling my 3 sections of children's lit students that previous classes had found MISSING MAY to be one of their favorite books for the term, I had two classes that raved about it and one that was totally underwhelmed. "Nothing happens in it," said one student, and others seemed to agree.)

Another is that (if my students are typical, anyway) many el ed students are ahistorical and find the details of history uninteresting--yet that's what makes BIRDY so intriguing (perhaps especially to adults, who look at the techinical skill involved). I've yet to try BIRDY with undergrads; my grad students enjoyed it last term, but a number of them were teachers who know what's available in ficition about the medieval period, which also colored their response. (And, to be honest, the second time through, preparing for class, I found BIRDY much slower than I expected. On the first reading, the novelty of Catherine's humorous voice, glimpses into the time period, and curiousity about Catherine's fate--I wasn't sure but that she'd end up with that old man--propelled me through the book. By the second reading, that newness was gone and the story and prose seemed less lively. )

Would you please let us know how they respond to SHABANU? That's one my grad students just love, but I've never tried it with undergrads.

One member of this list (sorry, forgot your name) questioned the reading ability of young students these days. Since when did reading quickly equal the ability to read? I don't mean to throw out some flamebait, but I worry about the pressure kids are under in these times. Consider the pace at which we live now, even in rural areas. Think of how quickly technology changes and how much information students are expected to process and remember.

TV,videos,computer games, all fast-paced, not requiring too must deep thought used to pacify the kids while the adults take a break, or used to escape the anxiety the kids surely must suffer.

How ironic that we expect kids to slow down enough to read and think about a good book, but they must do it quickly!

So, is anyone really that stunned to hear that many young people find a slow- paced book boring? Is this a flaw in the kids, in the education system, or in the society as a whole? Is it even a flaw at all?

If the world would just stop for a while so I can catch up....
Lori O'Connor, slow reader

I hate to confess that I never finished _Catherine Called Birdy_ because I found it boring. I suppose the reason it was boring for me is because Catherine was SO out of character that I found her unbelievable. I thoroughly enjoyed Avi's _True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle_ and other books with strong female protagonists. Okay, I feel obligated to finish it now. Nearly everyone I know who has read it disagrees with me!

Sanjay Sircar writes:
"--- if Peter Hunt (whom I used to know before he became a grand old man in children's literature and was just a bibliographer) is serious about all books responding to "literary" readings with the implication that all books are equal, that the reader creates value and that all readers are equal, it will have the effect on confirming what ordinary academia thinks, viz. children's books are a soft option and people who study them are soft in the head"
First, I should make clear that my earlier post included some of my own understanding both of reader-response criticism and of Hunt's article. I'm not sure that Hunt would swear to all of the points given here - part of it was my own attempt to articulate his position as I understood it.

What follows is definitely my own, and should not be credited to or blamed on Peter Hunt: Reader-response criticism would indeed suggest that books will respond to "literary" or non-"literary" readings - that it is at least as much the manner of reading as the nature of the book that determines what one distills from any given text. To say that all books contain "literary" values is NOT repeat NOT the same as saying that "all books are equal," and it is certainly not to say that "all readers are equal." To take the last point first, each reader brings a different set of experiences and/or expectations to the book; some readers are more perceptive than others, some favor certain approaches, some are able to employ a greater range of reading strategies than others, etc. Books may have "literary" values and still not be very good, or they may have "popular" qualities and be great - what I would emphatically argue against is the kind of facile equation of "literary" and "good", with the corrolary denigration of "popular" as necessarily "bad." We can agree that any two *adult* "classics" share the quality of "literary" characteristics, but still disagree as to whether they are equally "good" - or even whether they are equally effective at deploying the "literary" traits.

To say, then, that "popular" and "classic" children's books may share common traits, and that the distinction between them says a lot about how we read, can hardly "confirm what ordinary academia thinks" (if that is what "ordinary academia thinks" - coming from a campus where the second ever presidential lecture was given last fall on a children's writer, I am perhaps more optimistic about the status of this field). In fact, "ordinary academia," if by that we mean stuffy old English dons, etc., has already begun to make the same kind of comments about adult writing - has been doing so for some years now. That is, the distinction between "literary" and "popular" in adult books ALSO has a great deal to do with the expectations one brings to the text, not just the content of the text itself.

I've been lurking too, but also have to comment on _Birdy_. I am middle/upper school librarian at an independent girls' school in Pittsburgh, PA. I introduced Birdy to the 5-8 grade middle schoolers during a booktalk on the Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award program. Since then, the 6th grade English and Social Studies teachers have begun working on an interdisciplianry unit on the Middle Ages using Birdy, The Midwife's Apprentice, The Ramsay Scallop, Adam of the Road, etc. They have started a medieval reading club and are tackling things like Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, and A Connecticut Yankee as well as the other YA and middle school age books. They were in the process of passing around Midwife when it won the Newbery and were thrilled. A class set of Birdy has been purchased, and most of the girls have written continuations of the journal after Catherine married Steven as a creative writing project. The teachers have done a great job with this, and I certainly don't see any boredom! I continue to be amazed at the effect a good book can have!

I do hope that these interchanges get kept and filed for posterity! (I speak as one who searches for letters to t he editor in old magazines on the area, and they are dificult to find... It would be a great pity if electronics stimulkated both discussion and erasure). Sanjay

There is a doctoral student in Sweden working on historical novels and desperate for interesting think-material ON them (anot the novels themselves). Shouldn't she be sent this interchange for h er research. I find "strong female characters" anachronistically placed troublesome, but we all make the past in ourt own image, so what the hell.... (Though I think that when in actual fact woimen were oppressed, this sort of re-moulding evcen in fiction, tends to erase our sense of the sufferings of the silent which we should remember, and even though we casnot do anything about it, mourn --- and no, I am not a "victim feminist", nor a gynocritic!)

If you find this interesting, will you post it for me, please? I am not allowed...

Sanjay Sircar writes:

"There is a doctoral student in Sweden working on historical novels and desperate for interesting think-material ON them (anot the novels themselves). Shouldn't she be sent this interchange for her research. I find "strong female characters" anachronistically placed troublesome, but we all make the past in ourt own image, so what the hell....(text snipped by f-r-)

Assuming the CHILDLIT archives were preserved in the move, there should be some discussion of historical fiction from last summer - I remember a rather lengthy exchange, in which I took part, although I don't have a transcript where I can put my hands on it. However, a search of the archives by someone who knows how to do it (which I do not) could turn up some useful information.

Articles on historical fiction that have appeared fairly recently include Miriam Youngerman Miller, "'Thy Speech Is Strange and Uncouth': Language in the Children's Historical Novel of the Middle Ages" in *Children's Literature* 23 (1995) 71-90, and the same author's "'The Rhythm of a Tongue': Literary Dialect in Rosemary Sutcliff's Novels of the Middle Ages for Children" in the *Children's Literature Association Quarterly* 19:1 (Spring 1994) 25-31.

The student should probably also read some of the standard works on the historical novel per se, not just on children's historical fiction. These include Lukacs, *The Historical Novel*, and Fleischman, *The English Historical Novel*. On my shelves also I see Dominick LaCapra's *History, Politics, and the Novel* from 1987 but I have not yet gotten to it myself.

On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, linnea m hendrickson wrote: "I agree with Wally that Catherine's lively voice is perhaps the key attraction of the book... (text snipped by f-r-)"

Linnea's post puts me in mind of an essay I've been reading--Herbert Kohl's "The Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Revisited" (in his book _Should We Burn Babar_, New York: New Press, 1995). While it deals with actual history, rather than with historical novels, there's a connection here.

Kohl argues that by depicting, as many history books for children do, Rosa Parks as a tired seamstress who just didn't feel like getting up that day in 1955, we demean her courage and conviction to be a leader in the fight for civil rights (and she was such a leader before she refused to give up her seat; in fact she had refused and been put off buses for just such offense before Dec. 1, 1955, and she was an officer in the NAACP).

Does _Catherine, Called Birdy_ demean medieval women, such as, say, Hildegard von Bingen, because Catherine is so clearly a twentieth-century girl? Certainly it skirts the issue of women's oppression (just as many accounts of the Montgomery bus boycott skirt the issue of racism, not in the least by never actually using the *word* racism), by suggesting that if more thirteenth-century women had just been spunky enough, all this enforced marrying would never have happened.

Like Linnea and others who have responded to this thread, I was not bored by _Catherine, Called Birdy_ (and I would guess that quite a few--not to say all--of those who were bored watch a lot of TV). And I enjoyed reading it for pleasure. But when I look at it critically, I, too, am bothered by the twentieth-century feminist teenager stuck in the middle of a medieval world.

Hey! I just saw that book. I was sitting in the library, in the children's section writing (I write children's stories) and I was distracted by it, just yesterday. It was on display. I didn't read all of it but I was sufficiently distracted by it to want to take it out. I might understand how children find it dry and boring. There is an understated humor that ran through the excerpts I read - such that they might miss. I think of her imagining "pissing" (her own word!) into the stream and her piss running out into the sea, having all the adventures she would like to have. This self-conscious self-mockery might be over their heads. It's true; it's not a plot oriented book. It's almost a satire of modern life and so somewhat sophisticated?

Gee, what a coincedence [sic] that you should mention it!

Thu, 1 Feb 1996
Wendy E. Betts

On Feb 1, 2:31pm, Kathleen Jo Powell Hannah wrote: "Does _Catherine, Called Birdy_ demean medieval women, such as, say, Hildegard von Bingen, because Catherine is so clearly a twentieth-century girl? .. (text snipped by f-r-)"

I think this is an unfair presentation of the novel. Catherine did *not* avoid her fate through being spunky, although you could argue that the author's deus ex machina happy ending is just as bad. But I'd like to point out once again that this idea of Catherine as a modern girl in medieval robes is only one opinion. I certainly didn't feel that way about the book. And I find it ludicrous to accept the idea that no one ever rebelled against their culture in the midle ages, simply because they were the middle ages. How do cultures ever change if no one rebells? Our history books are filled with stories of *men* who rebelled and changed the world! Women may not have been able to rebell as sucessfully, but that doesn't mean none tried in their own, individual ways.

"Like Linnea and others who have responded to this thread, I was not bored by _Catherine, Called Birdy_ (and I would guess that quite a few--not to say all--of those who were bored watch a lot of TV). (text snipped by f-r-)"

I find this an extremely offensive and uncalled for remark.

Another recent title which uses the same time period is "The Forestwife" by Theresa Thomlinson. The main character, who becomes the Maid Marion of Robin Hood fame, runs away from home to life in the forest rather than face the prospect of marriage to a much older man. It read well and is an interesting take on an old legend.

Hi! Couldn't believe my luck, someone started a thread about a book I'm about to read! I just started taking a new class...Teaching Reading With Literature...required of middle school teachers in our county who will be teaching a reading class as an extra period starting next year. Since my field language arts, I am in my glory. Imagine..."having" to read a minimum of 25 books written for middle school aged students, and getting graduate credit to boot! Anyway, one of the books on our list is Catherine Called Birdy. I have never read it; so many books, so little time. I checked it out from our school library yesterday, and plan to read it this weekend, as soon as I finish averaging grades. I have been reading your posts about the book and am anxious to get started. We're in the middle of another snow storm, so curling up with a good book is the order of the day.

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the list but I can't resist getting in on the discussion of Catherine Called Birdy. This kind of ties into the Shakespeare discussion also. When you question catherine's character authenticity why don't you look to books and stories written closer to her time like Romeo and Juliet. Juliet certainly didn't marry the man that was picked for her. There are lots of examples of strong women characters in Shakespeare and in folktales and folk songs deriving from that time and before. There have always been exceptions to the rule and they are the most interesting.

Kathleen Jo Powell Hannah

Well, we certainly have a number of time frames here. Catherine and Juliet are two hundred years apart, although I guess we could say that they are both of the middle ages, even though neither of their creators is of the middle ages. Karen Cushman and Catherine are seven hundred years apart, Shakespeare and Juliet are a hundred years apart. I don't think either Cushman or Shakespeare was going for a strict historical accuracy.

It's not really the avoidance of marriage that bothers me about Catherine. It's that she doesn't seem to be a product of her time at all. Although she reads her book of saints and feels guilty about her sins, particularly against those she cares for, like Morewenna, she doesn't really seem to view as sinning her attacks on her father, her neglect of her work. etc. I can see Cushman's purpose in this characterization--the blurb on my book even says "She's not your average damsel in distress"; it's just that it doesn't work for me.

By the way, Wendy was right when she said that Catherine doesn't avoid marriage through spunk (that was perhaps an irresponsible emotional response on my part to say that it was)--it was pure luck.

I've just gone back to the text of Catherine, Called Birdy in search of evidence to support my feelings about the book. As Katie Hannah says, it is not that she is rebellious and unconforming that bothers me, it is that she does not seem to truly belong to the medieval world. I don't believe that any 13th-century fourteen- year old would write in her diary the kinds of things Catherine says about her father. She would have been part of a very hierarchical society, where everyone's place and role in life was predetermined, and the rebellion of a truly rebellious girl would have taken other forms. Respect for authority would have tempered whatever disrespect or feeling of unfairness she might have had.

I don't think she would have questioned that becoming a wife and housewife was to be her role in life. She might have objected to certain aspects of this role, and then worked to find ways to modify or subvert it -- demanded more say in her choice of husband, say, or found tasks that were acceptable for women, but that were less distasteful than embroidery to her. Or become a nun, which she rejects, or if it was truly so horrible, have run away disguised as a boy.

Rereading the book now, it occurs to me that many of the incidents and descriptions have been put in for the sole purpose of educating the reader about medieval life. This may be part of what some readers are responding to in their comments about too many characters, and too many unconnected incidents. A problem that compounds the issue of authenticity, is the choice of the diary form. I suspect that in a real diary, many of the things that get mentioned here would not have been mentioned at all because they would have been taken for granted. 29 fleas picked off today, for example.

Part of me feels that lots of gritty details are included purposely to shock and detract from any romantic, idealized images the reader may have of medieval life, but if these details are accurate, then I don't think Birdy would have constantly mentioned them. It is that 20th-century perspective looking back with superiority that bothers me.

Upon beginning to reread, I found myself thinking that I simply don't believe this girl or her world is real, and I'm beginning to think that the whole purpose of the book is to teach me some lessons, which puts me on my guard.

To look at other ways in which past historical periods have been handled more successfully, and in different styles, consider Joan Blos's A Gathering of Day's where a New England girl's journal is written in a quaint old-fashioned language, and the details are spare, just as they would have been in an actual journal. In fact, that journal sounds so real that it is hard to convince ourselves that it is a work of fiction. No one would mistake CCCB for a real medieval journal even in a free translation.

In Alan Garner's Red Shift, soldiers in ancient Roman Britain speak in language that has the cadences and vocabulary of American soldiers in Vietnam. Cushman on the other hand combines bits of medieval English and its structures with a breezy modern style -- a brave attempt, but somehow it feels fake. In Garner's case the anachronistic language hints at a powerful connection between two wars and the occupation of two countries centuries apart by foreign troops, and reinforces the complex notion of time that permeates the book. The language jars one's thinking. It is an interesting experiment.

In Garner's Stone Book, however, he has succeeded in conveying the flavor of the language of another place and time in a way that is perfectly comprehensible to the modern reader. The Stone Book should be required reading for anyone contemplating writing that captures regional or historical qualities of language. For insight into how Garner did it, see his interview with Aidan Chambers in A Signal Approach, edited by Nancy Chambers.

I hate to be so hard on the book. I see it as a brave and original, but flawed attempt to create a work of historical fiction that will interest young people. The unromantic view of history is refreshing. I'd love to hear of more reactions from young people themselves. If this book can get them reading more history and historical fiction, that's great.

On Feb 3, 10:49pm, linnea m hendrickson wrote:
"To look at other ways in which past historical periods have been handled more successfully, and in different styles, consider Joan Blos's A Gathering of Day's where a New England girl's journal is written in a quaint old-fashioned language, and the details are spare, just as they would have been in an actual journal. In fact, that journal sounds so real that it is hard to convince ourselves that it is a work of fiction. No one would mistake CCB for a real medieval journal even in a free translation."

Well, I haven't read _A Gathering of Days_ but I did read another of Blos' books written in a similar style and thought it the most tedious thing I've ever read. I don't seem much point in writing fiction so much like non-fiction that it's boring. ;-)

I agree the book (CCB) is flawed, but I see it more flawed as a work of fiction than as a historical work. At any rate, response to it seems to be extremely postive on the whole, which I think qualifies it as a successful attempt.

Linnea writes:

"Rereading the book now, it occurs to me that many of the incidents and descriptions have been put in for the sole purpose of educating the reader about medieval life."

I am glad someone brought this up. This especially bothered me about the hanging incident. It seemed to have no relevance to the rest of the story, and I thought the only purpose of this scene was to educate. I found this really jarring.

I did find CCB kind of slow (and I *never* watch tv!) but the slowness seemed appropriate. After all, daily life generally just goes on without too many exciting incidents.

All in all, despite its flaws, I found CCB very charming.

When I read Linnea's comment that Catherine didn't seem to truly belong to the medieval world, I decided I had to jump in again and struggle to put words on the things I've been mulling over on this issue. Even my students who claimed to be bored with the book did defend Catherine's strength ("there have been strong women in all times") and brought up some of the literary examples that have been raised in other responses. But is it Catherine as a strong woman that seems not right or is it, as Linnea suggests, something else? Someone commented to me that it's her literary pursuits that seem anachronistic. Someone else said it's her obsession with personal identity issues.

That struck me, because it's one of those cultural things that feels almost impossible to transcend. The awareness of and struggle with personal identity is so much part of our culture and also part of our culture's stories that I tend to doubt that a story without it would have enough smack of *story* to satisfy many readers these days. Someone alluded to that with A GATHERING OF DAYS, correct?

I've struggled with all this so much in my re-tellings of Ethiopian folktales. Those of you who've read the author's note for FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN (a much shorter note than I wanted, BTW) know that I struggled with questions of whether I was creating too strong of a figure in the sister, given that Ethiopia is an extremely patriarchial society. I was finally comforted in thinking of the ancient Ethiopian folklore that celebrates strong women, even in a society where women generally do not speak out--primarily the story of the Queen of Sheba and also the legends of Judith, the [probably] Beta-Israel woman who led the indigenous people to sack the kingdom of Axum. One reviewer said the sister was unnecessary. Interesting because she's is kind of unnecessary to the plot...but she's culturally necessary because in Ethiopian folktales, people don't strike out as rugged individualists. They do things in community. (In the original as I heard it as a child, the sister character is a judge.)

How much is it really possible to bridge these cultural gaps with stories that also have to "work" for a modern northAmerican audience? Perry raises that qustion in his chapter on folklore--we often assume we're seeing humankind-wide values when it may well be a distortion of the original story we're seeing. For example, when I was a child, I heard the story of the lion's whiskers as a story told about a woman who feels her husband doesn't love her and also as the story of a woman "who has lost the love of her son." To try to find a way to make the story "work" for kids (and for my editors), I ended up turning it inside out and telling it through the eyes of a stepchild. Interestingly, another version came out last spring, just before mine, that told the story from the point of view of a stepmother. No doubt, American audiences will now assume for all time that Ethiopians (Amhara Ethiopians, at least) think such-and-such about stepmothers/stepchildren, as revealed in this ancient folktale.

I know the struggles I've gone through to try to find some way to talk about Ethiopia with people here. Sometimes I self-censor. When I talked to an Ethiopian friend about how a girl would act in the situation of getting a new mother, she told me that after days of feasting, the father would call to the girl and say, "Here's your new mother; kiss her feet." One of those telling details...but I couldn't put it in. The last thing I want with my stories is to raise a sense of "ewwww!" (Too much like the "did you see Tarzan?" questions kids met me with whenever I came back from Ethiopia as a kid.) Sometimes my editors censor. Back when the U.S. was militarily involved in Somalia, I wanted to do a re-telling of a Somalia folktale so kids would have a less one-dimensional sense of this east African country that was always in the news. No one would touch the story--because it involved the issue of the father choosing a husband for his daughter. No matter how I presented the girl as actively involved in her own life, our "empowering girls" values clash with our "presenting cultures as they really are" values too much on this one. The only version those I talked to would have been interested in was a re-telling that made the protagonist a feminist Somalia girl choosing her own husband and *that* one I wasn't willing to do. Given my own experiences, then, I sincerely doubt a less spunky Catherine would ever have seen light of day...or printer's ink.

I guess what I'm hearing myself say is that I don't think we're going to GET fiction that is truly culturally accurate. If that's true, where does it leave us as teachers and as people who teach teachers? How would (for example) people deal with Catherine's anachronisms with kids who were reading the book? Or don't we? Jane Kurtz

(quoted text snipped by f-r-)

Partial quotes from a long and fascinating post. (Myself, I loved Catherine Called Birdy--could hardly put it down.)

But I usually don't read historical fiction. I don't have the taste for it, somehow, and I usually feel that I'm being mis-educated when I do. I didn't with Catherine, and I'm disappointed to realize that it was probably true there, also.

Science fiction writers find that they must write about human beings--even if the "human beings" are ten feet tall and have tentacles and three legs-- because human thought processes are what we as readers and writers under- stand and are interested in.

As a matter of fact, American sf writers frequently find they are writing about -American- human beings (tentacles and all) because that's what they know.

And yet--I hate to think we can't -at all- get into the mindset of another age. Mustn't there be -some- similarity? Even in the most group-oriented society, personal identity still existed, after all. It was individuals who were saved or damned. People still knew other people as individuals, and preferred some to others. If a wife misbehaved, some people might blame the husband, but you can bet the husband blamed -her-!

Nowadays, we live in an age of startling and almost insane individuality, trying to pretend that groups have no real existance--or that they only exist in a positive way. For instance, some take extreme pride in their country's glorious history, but refuse to feel any shame about the --ahem-- less glorious parts. To me, that seems inconsistent. If I ponder issues of group responsibility, am I an anachronism? Would I have to be left out of a book set in this time and place?

Dunno.

Anybody read Chaucer lately (I haven't)? Was the Wife of Bath an individualist?

"....writing fiction so much like non-fiction that it's boring..." Not necessarily. Non-fiction has no corner on boring. In fact, much of it is most interesting and beautifully written.

On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Roy R Wilson Jr wrote: "'....writing fiction so much like non-fiction that it's boring...' Not necessarily. Non-fiction has no corner on boring. In fact, much of it is most interesting and beautifully written."

Does anyone know _Doomsday Book_ by Connie Willis? Although the book is nearly 450 pages, my son was 13 when he read it. He disappeared for a few days while he was reading it, but he and others in his class were spellbound by her writing. The book has multiple plots but it is accessible to young people. I'm certain the reason it wasn't marketed for young adults is because of its length. Certainly, the kids I know who have read it came away with a realistic view of medieval life, and the Plague in England. It is beautifully written.

I have been reading the CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY thread with great interest as my English Department chose this text as one of our featured books for our 1996 Children's Literature English Festival. Nearly three thousand middle and senior high school students will be reading this book (along with six other books) over the next couple of months. Your responses have been so vehement that I can't tell whether we've chosen a text that will generate tremendous discussion among the students, teachers, guests, and authors or whether Cushman's text will be a real clunker (we have on occasion created that sort of phenomenon before). Come April I'll let you know how the festival students who read this book voluntarily (it is not assigned classroom reading) respond to it. In the meantime . . .

If anyone who has been teaching, reading, or discussing this book with students has any ideas about how to present or introduce it, I'd be grateful to hear them. When the students come to the university for the festival, they usually attend at least one focused "insight session" where we take an indepth look at one of the festival texts. I'm looking for ideas about how to get such sessions going on CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY.

In response to the comment (Linnea's, I think), that the book isn't written in a medieval vernacular, I have to respond that I think Cushman is only to be praised for such a decision. The book struggles to make a distant period seem avilable, to immerse the reader in a version of that world. Therefore the medieval dialect is "translated" into a contemporary version of English, with a few new words and phrases which stretch the imagination and the vocabulary, in the same way that Mole and Rat in WIND IN THE WILLOWS are allowed to speak English instead of their "natural" language. The book is not a time-slip fantasy in which the reader is asked to look at the new world from an outsider's point of view; the reader is instead asked to be an insider. It is, of course, impossible for any of us to "know" the medieval experience--which is why the text is marketed as fiction, and not history.

Jane,

Your reply is wonderful, and I can't begin to do justice to it. The issue you raise about reconciling cultures and time periods so that they remain accurate or authentic but still are accessible to a reader from other cultures or other times, is so important. This is a question that countless writers have struggled with. Writers of historical fiction, especially, have spoken about this problem.

I would love to hear what Karen Cushman has to say about her struggles and thinking on this issue, and maybe this will come out in her Newbery acceptance speech this year.

I think your Pulling the Lion's Tale and Fire on the Mountain do successfully bridge those gaps, and successfuly interpret one culture to another. I think of the work of Ann Nolan Clark or of Florence Crannell Means, two writers from outside of the cultures they wrote about, who nevertheless spent years, lifetimes trying to understand, and to act as intermediaries through their books between different cultures.

There is no way anyone is going to write and not be influenced by their own time, their own culture, their own values, and all of these will inevitably color interpretations and perceptions of another culture or time. And this is good, because we want and need connections.

The question, it seems to me, is how to best do this. An example of a medieval story, written at the same time as Birdy, is Frances Temple's Ramsay Scallop. As I read, I felt she was consciously including issues that were related to contemporary concerns, issues of tolerance and exploring differences in religious beliefs, in cultures. Elenor in the Ramsay Scallop is also a strong and independent woman, but her behavior nevertheless fits within what would have been at least close to acceptable for that time.

I did not find The Ramsay Scallop boring. I thought it was one of the best new books I read last year, and I guess I was hoping that Birdy would be another Ramsay Scallop. I can see that Birdy has to some extent broken the mold for historical fiction. Were the awards were given to these books because they are good, or because they are different? Back to the "jaded reader" thread again.