First published: 1996

Rating: Average

"When animal droppings and garbage and spoiled straw are piled up in a great heap, the rotting and moiling give forth heat."

Oh, that's the sort of first line you want in a children's book. Ew, anyone? But Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice isn't all that bad--definitely not her best book (although the Newbery Award people don't agree with me), but not all that bad.

It's the story of a young girl with no name, no family, and no home who decides to sleep in a dung heap one night because, all else aside, it's warm. She's discovered in the morning by a woman she comes to call Jane Sharp, the village midwife, who sees that the girl, first called "Beetle" and later self-named "Alyce," might be useful to her. So Alyce does work in exchange for food, eventually earning a place in Jane's house.

But the midwife is the jealous type, and she doesn't want Alyce nosing in on her business. Alyce manages to learn a bit on her own, but when push comes to shove she can't perform--on her first outing as a midwife she fails to deliver and, unable to face the shame, she runs away. Will she come back and face up to her failure? Who knows!

If Alyce does come back, she'll have to learn from Jane Sharp, which'll be difficult since the midwife suffers from the same inconsistent characterization as some of her fellow villagers. Maybe it's because time goes by a bit quickly in the story, which also suffers from being moralistic--The Midwife's Apprentice reads a bit like a fable when wrapping up the plots smaller stories. It's also one of those stories where the character has a quick epiphany and the story ends--abrupt and a bit unsatisfying.

The Midwife's Apprentice is a good piece of historical fiction for young readers, but I much prefer Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy, which is not itself without flaws, but is a thicker volume and therefore has more to play with.

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