In her long-awaited new novel, Newbery medalist Karen Cushman assembles a cast of unforgettable characters in a fascinating and pungent setting: th...
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Aug 31, 2009
Sylvia
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Apa jadinya kalau sejak kecil kita dibesarkan di sebuah rumah mewah, mendapatkan pengetahuan kita hanya dari seorang guru sekaligus penasehat spiritual, tanpa mengetahui dunia luar sana? Bagai katak dalam tempurung, bukan?
Itulah yang terjadi pada Matilda. Sejak ibunya meninggal, Matilda tinggal bersama ayahnya yang bekerja pada seorang kaya raya sebagai juru tulis di sebuah rumah yang besar. Matilda diajarkan membaca, menulis Latin yang suatu hari nanti akan bermanfaat baginya. At le More...
Itulah yang terjadi pada Matilda. Sejak ibunya meninggal, Matilda tinggal bersama ayahnya yang bekerja pada seorang kaya raya sebagai juru tulis di sebuah rumah yang besar. Matilda diajarkan membaca, menulis Latin yang suatu hari nanti akan bermanfaat baginya. At le More...
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Mar 23, 2009
Anney
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Matilda's dropped off in "Blood and Bone" Alley by this priest that has raised her since childhood. She's a snobby little bitch who thinks she knows everything. The bonesetter Red Peg and the rest of the health workers in the alley teach Matilda right.
I'm really torn as to whether this was better than "Catherine Called Birdy" or not. It's so different, it's incomparable. I loved both books so so so so so so much.
In "Matilda Bone," Karen Cush More...
I'm really torn as to whether this was better than "Catherine Called Birdy" or not. It's so different, it's incomparable. I loved both books so so so so so so much.
In "Matilda Bone," Karen Cush More...
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May 24, 2011
Iskreads
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Title: Matilda Bone
Author: Karen Cushman
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rate: 4 Stars
Summary: Matilda Bone by Karen Cushman is about a fourteen year old girl that is taken to Bone Alley. She was a very religious girl and lived with a priest in a Manor. The story takes place during the Renaissance, a very interesting age! Matilda is taken to Bone Alley to help a woman named Red Peg, the Bonesetter. Matilda, being extremely religious, finds tha More...
Author: Karen Cushman
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rate: 4 Stars
Summary: Matilda Bone by Karen Cushman is about a fourteen year old girl that is taken to Bone Alley. She was a very religious girl and lived with a priest in a Manor. The story takes place during the Renaissance, a very interesting age! Matilda is taken to Bone Alley to help a woman named Red Peg, the Bonesetter. Matilda, being extremely religious, finds tha More...
May 23, 2010
Sarah
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The last of the Cushman's I have to read, Matilda Bone continued on the author's theme of historical/coming-of-age fiction. Set in medieval England, young Matilda is set in her ways, as much as she can be at 14. She is sent to work for Peg the bone setter. But Matilda has been taught reading, Latin, obedience and much theology, and she considers everyone who does not know at least as much as herself to be beneath her. In time, she comes to understand that everyone has their virtues and that
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Nov 22, 2009
Camzcam
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So I have 4 children in 3 different schools and consequently spend a lot of time in the car. Lately I have been listening to a lot of YA fiction to pass the taxi time. I figure with little ears in the back seat, I better keep things safe and select books on CD strictly from the young adult section. It turns out that all teen books these days are about cliques, mean girls, and vampires...blech! So I was thrilled to listen to this little gem by Karen Cushman.
If you aren't familia More...
If you aren't familia More...
Aug 25, 2010
SarahC
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This book aimed at young readers tells an interesting story and displays what good quality writing is all about. Young Matilda, living in England of the Middle Ages finds herself virtually orphaned at 14 and sharing the plight which many children would have experienced during that era. With no real relations or home of her own, she is apprenticed to the village bonesetter. She feels out of place and lacking skills, but begins to see that life forms connections in many ways and people's skills a
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Aug 12, 2010
Mary
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CUSHMAN, Karen. Matilda Bone. 167p. Dell Yearling. 2000. ISBN: 0-440-41822-4.
When we meet Matilda she is in a state of disbelief. She has just been dropped off at the end of Blood and Bone Alley, where she is to find her new home and place of apprenticeship with Red Peg the Bonesetter. Matilda is in constant hope that Father Leufredus, her guardian and teacher since she became orphaned, will come back for her. He has provided her a medieval religious education; she knows Latin and the li More...
When we meet Matilda she is in a state of disbelief. She has just been dropped off at the end of Blood and Bone Alley, where she is to find her new home and place of apprenticeship with Red Peg the Bonesetter. Matilda is in constant hope that Father Leufredus, her guardian and teacher since she became orphaned, will come back for her. He has provided her a medieval religious education; she knows Latin and the li More...
May 23, 2009
Carol
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Aug 17, 2009
Anika
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I think of the three of Karen Cushman's that I have read so far this is my favorite. You can see the growth as an author in this book, I believe it is her fourth, in the depth of the charaters and the development of the story.
Matilda is prickly as a main charater and difficult to enjoy at first but her transformation is so captivating and her world view so alien from anything I have encountered that I was really drawn in. The surrounding characters have a surprising three-dimensionality t More...
Matilda is prickly as a main charater and difficult to enjoy at first but her transformation is so captivating and her world view so alien from anything I have encountered that I was really drawn in. The surrounding characters have a surprising three-dimensionality t More...
Aug 23, 2011
Emily
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Just as I was beginning to find the protagonist tolerable, the story wrapped itself up in a very open ending. I think the conflict the character was illustrating was very relevant for the historical period the story is exploring, however, it was humoring a viewpoint that is extremely difficult for a modern reader to sympathize with. I felt the author could have potentially bridged the reader's sympathies with the protagonist's with a lighter, more charitable hand. But the illustration she crea
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Sep 25, 2011
Karyn
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This is a novel for slightly older readers than is Catherine, Called Birdy, although it springs from the same body of research (as does Cushman’s The Midwife’s Apprentice). This tale shows more graphically the conditions in which the common people of the period lived. Matilda Bone becomes an apprentice to a “bone-setter,” or wise woman—who charged less from and did more for the poorer people in the community. Through her story we learn of the living conditions, the social structure, the polit
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Aug 24, 2010
Anne
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Well-written and a quick read. Its the story of an orphan raised by a priest to be extremely religious and disciplined. When Matilda is a young teen the priest drops her off at Red Peg, the Bonesetter's to be her assistant. Having no concept of the real world, and being very confused as to why she's been abandoned, this is quite a shock and requires much patience and adjustment, not just for Matilda, but for those in her new world, as well. Good depiction of the Middle Ages and the practice of
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Jul 16, 2010
Dawn
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Father Leufredus has taught Matilda how to read, speak, and write Latin, how to read and write in English, information about various saints, how to pray in different positions and at several times during the day, how to judge, all about the countless things that are wrong and bad for her, but he hasn't taught her how to listen, to love, to laugh, to dream, or to give of herself. He hasn't taught her what a friend is, or what it feels like to belong. But when he drops her off to apprentice to Red
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Jun 29, 2009
Jared
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A slight but entertaining story about a sheltered, well-educated girl who finds her ability to read Latin and intimate knowledge of saints and devils to be of very little use when she is apprenticed to a bonesetter and plunged into the world of medieval medicine. Great grade-school material to read as part of a Middle Ages unit, with loads of period detail disguised by a story children will be able to follow and relate to. Cushman does a particularly excellent job of leaving out anachronistic id
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May 25, 2010
Renee
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Written by Celine Tougas, aged 11.
This is a story about an orphan named Matilda in medieval England. She was raised by a priest in a manor but then was dropped off at Blood and Bone Alley to be apprenticed to Red Peg the bonesetter. At first she feels lonely and misunderstood because no one thinks that reading latin and knowing the names of saints is any use. She is also proud and difficult to get a long with. She meets a friend named Tildy. In the end Matilda learns to be more appr More...
This is a story about an orphan named Matilda in medieval England. She was raised by a priest in a manor but then was dropped off at Blood and Bone Alley to be apprenticed to Red Peg the bonesetter. At first she feels lonely and misunderstood because no one thinks that reading latin and knowing the names of saints is any use. She is also proud and difficult to get a long with. She meets a friend named Tildy. In the end Matilda learns to be more appr More...
Jan 26, 2010
Dianna
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I love learning about the way medieval people lived their lives from day to day, and Karen Cushman managed to teach me not only that, but also the way they might have thought. Usually in books, characters' literacy is seen as a good thing, sometimes even all-important. But Matilda Bone, educated in reading, writing, Latin, and the lives of the saints, learns that there are more important things in life. It is so interesting to see the way her thinking changes through the book. She goes from thin
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May 04, 2011
Tahira
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I found Matilda Bone on a list of feminist novels for girls. Karen Cushman, whom I read and did not fully appreciate as an eight and nine year old, tells the charming and quaint story of Matilda, a girl who aspires to achieve saintly status via the influential teachings of a priest who imparts the importance of being "meek and obedient". When Matilda finds herself in a new place, where bodily presence is not disregarded or sinful, where women are wise and learned, where science is trus
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Sep 14, 2011
Colleen
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My only complaint about Matilda Bone? It wasn't long enough! The author could easily have lengthened the story--expanding on Matilda's growth from a self-centered, self-righteous, snooty girl to someone who learns of the importance of friendship, sacrifice, and an appreciation of others. The author, in her end note, mentions how during her research, she realized that her job was to tell a story, not write a medical dictionary. Bravo--finally, a writer who realizes that every bit of her resea
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May 24, 2011
Melody
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I liked this, though I found it fairly heavy-handed. Young Matilda has been raised by a priest to be humble but learned in Latin, to be obedient and not to question, to be a priggish pain in the tush, in other words. She's suddenly sent to live with Red Peg the Bonesetter, and oh, how Matilda hates this new life where Latin isn't important, and God is about love instead of punishment, and where the unschooled and the ignorant help people in distress. Heavy-handed, but sweet and well-researched a
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Oct 13, 2009
Carol
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Karen Cushman weaves another medieval tale about an orphan raised by a strict clergyman. She is well-versed in religious lore, but not in the practical things of life such as building fires and going to market. When Father Leufredus leaves her to live with the Bonesetter in Blood and Bone Alley, Matilda must change how she sees the world she lives in and the people around her. Cushman's interest in medieval medicine underscores this coming of age story. Not as compelling as the author's earl
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Dec 08, 2009
Louai
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The book “Matilda Bone” by author Karen Cushman, talks about how Matilda is used to an easier way of living. She would prefer to live in a manor house with Father Leufredus than to live with a bone setter, because in the manor she got everything she wanted, and she studied Latin and the lives of the Saints that she adored. But one day she is brought to live with a local bone setter who is called Mistress Pig. She soon finds out that her life will be filled with the scent of healing herbs, broken
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Mar 06, 2009
Amy
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Liked this juve. fiction book set in Medieval England... I enjoyed the quirky characters and learning about a practice called "bone-setting". Bone setters could be unlearned and even women (gasp!) They, of course, set broken bones and did other things doctors would not do. This story tells the tale of an orphan girl who is apprenticed to a bone setter... thus, the title "Matilda Bone". Along her learning curve, she meets many interesting characters who help shape her ideas a
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Apr 01, 2009
Cindi
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When I first started listening to this book, I wasn't sure I would continue. There was too much reference by Matilda (age 14) to the priest that she had lived with prior to her coming to live with the bone setter, Peg. As the book continued on, though, I realized that the author was brilliant in the way that she very slowly showed Matilda's change of mind and heart in the way she viewed the world. Historical fiction is my favorite genre because I can learn things while being entertained. Thi
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Feb 12, 2009
Tina
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This is a wonderful little story about Matilda, who has gone to be a bonesetter's helper after living in a manor where she assisted and was taught by a priest. She learns about the love of God as opposed to His wrath and judgment and comes to understand that she must use the tools that she has to make her way in the world. I learned interesting information about medicine during the medieval times.
Dec 02, 2010
Whitney
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Matlida Bone shapes up as a reluctant apprentice to a bonesetter in medieval England. "Matilda Bone" is populated by good, salt of the earth characters who feel as real, warty and friendly as the best of regular folk. Matilda can't see that at first -- nor does she want to.
Carefully drawn with an archaeologist's (not just an historian's) eye for cultural and everyday detail, "Matilda Bone" also boasts a prickly if softer-hearted-than-she-thinks-heroine and charac More...
Carefully drawn with an archaeologist's (not just an historian's) eye for cultural and everyday detail, "Matilda Bone" also boasts a prickly if softer-hearted-than-she-thinks-heroine and charac More...
Jul 06, 2011
Cassie
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I have to be honest, I could not finish it. I was trudging through the book and stopped after a chapter to look up the author, then I found out she also wrote Catherine, Called Birdy, which I hated and gave up on when I was a pre-teen. I just could not finish it. I am sorry. It does have redeeming qualities, like the use of saints' stories, but not enough to keep me reading.
Oct 12, 2009
kvon
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I'm wondering how historically accurate this one is, and tempted to go back and reread Birdy, which I only remember good things about. This one was a bit more heavy handed, about blindly believing what you are told vs learning through experience. It's mostly put in terms of science vs religion. I did find it funny whenever the saints answered Matilda in completely unhelpful ways.
Sep 03, 2009
Sandra
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Though not quite as engaging as her other two, this novel of a girl struggling against the limitations of society in the Middle Ages is still an entertaining way of learning how real people lived. With humor and good values, this tale is well worth the little time it takes to read. Aimed at upper elementary and middle school readers, it's still fun for the rest of us to read.
Aug 19, 2009
Hannah
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Matilda is a snot and is infuriating at times, however it's not her fault because she's been brainwashed by a morbid priest. I'm glad that she comes to her senses by the end of the book. The other characters are heartwarming people who could teach us all a thing or two about how to live. I would recommend this book to people who are looking for a quick, light read.
Dec 27, 2009
deena
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This is YA lit. I tried to envision my 5th grade girl reading it. There is an element in the writing style that I think she would be confused by. Matilda speaks to different Saints when she needs comfort. The was they answer her back is a bit confusing. Otherwise, I thought it was a good read for this age group.
