Books That Made Me: Catherine, Called Birdy

Hey everybody, we’re taking a break from SOPA this week to focus entirely on something different. Books!  Specifically, one of the books I’ve had on my shelf the longest. Which means this is the beginning of a new segment.

Welcome to Books that Made Me! This is a feature in which I’ll share my memories of a book I read as a kid, re-read that book, and see if it holds up as well as I remember.  We will start off with the book I have read the most times, and the only book I ever wrote in willingly before just to keep a tally of how many times I had read it.That book is Catherine, Called Birdy.

First, a little background history between me and Catherine. I was in the gifted program at my elementary school for students that were above a certain percentile for reading and spelling in my school. There were twelve of us in the course, I still remember all of their names, and we all moved up in the same class for three years until I was unable to stay in the program by 7^th grade.  We had this special shelf of books that were tougher than the normal 4^th grade level, and were encouraged to read as high a level as we felt we could understand to test up comprehension levels. By the end of 4^th grade, I had risen to the expected reading level of a freshman in high school, but I kept using the time in class to read one particular book over and over. There weren’t many fantasy books on the shelf, and even in a class full of highly intelligent kids I was still considered the nerd for reading them. I just fell in love with Catherine’s world, fell in love with her spirit, and imagined becoming a female knight so I could save her from Shaggy-Beard. It got to the point that when my mom asked me what I wanted for a present when I moved up to middle school that I dragged her to the bookstore and got my own copy. I started making tally marks for the times I read it outside of school, and never stopped.

For those who can't see all the tally marks, 71.

 This was the book that I read to comfort me when my Grandpa was dying, and when I was grieving for my uncle. It is one of the few books I bought for myself at that age that survived the Great Bookshelf Purge of Post-College, and probably the one book I will never give up. But is it good?

Catherine, Called Birdy is a Newbery Honor book written by Karen Cushman in 1994 based around the fictional life of Catherine Rollo, called Birdy for her wild streak, the fourteen year old daughter of a small lord in Medieval England. It’s written in the form of her diary, and clocks in at 205 pages. I remember that her uncle was a night, her brother became a priest, and I think she had one more, even older brother. She was the youngest of her family, the only girl, and a very strong, independent young woman.  In a way, Catherine may have been the first feminist character that I had ever read, and she stuck with me for a long time.

Karen Cushman also wrote one other book that I read growing up that is probably better known. A year after Catherine, Called Birdy was released and won a Newbery Honor, she released The Midwife’s Apprentice. That book actually won the Newbery Prize, and got more publicity and recognition as a result. However that one did not have nearly as large an impact on me, to the point I had actually forgotten until I was looking for the cover for this post and The Midwife’s Apprentice  cover was in the top results line.

Looking back, I remember learning the art of creative swearing from her, but not in the typical profanity sense. She used to combine God and a body part or something similar to come up with her curses, which of course were profane at that time and technically still blasphemous today.  I remember starting to take out my frustration by yelling out some religious figure’s name attached to a household object for at least a year, but I can’t remember any of my particularly good ones.

"Corpus Bones! I utterly loathe my life."

The style of the writing also affected me deeply, in a way I never realized until I started getting concerned with college. It’s probably surprising to hear that I was never good at writing in school until I was a junior in high school. I was absolutely terrible, and I could never constrain myself to what the teachers wanted. The whole five paragraph essay with five sentences in every paragraph and uncompromisingly rigid structure is the entire reason I was booted from the gifted program after middle school unlike the rest of my peers. I was always passable after that, but never exemplary. Then I got into a thematic English course, where the whole point was to be able to be creative with the texts and your own writing.  The first thing I did was write a paper in the style of a diary for one of the characters in the book Of Mice and Men.  I think the form of Catherine, Called Birdy influenced that choice as well, since it was one of the first books I read for school that I really connected with on a personal level. It made more sense to me in the long run to write what will tell your story  the best or get the information you want to share across in the most effective way than be constrained by the rules.

So now you know what I remember. How does it actually hold up now?

It didn’t take me too long to read again, with a total time of two hours of reading so it is much shorter than I remember it being. But the pacing still is as even as my memories and Catherine’s entries become longer and longer as she gets used to writing in a diary. I forgot that the original premise for writing the diary was so that her brother Edward (the priest) could see if writing would make her more observant and thoughtful of her world, but I think the answer in the end could be said as yes without giving too much away.

"11th Day of May, Feast of Saint Credan, who killed his father and in remorse became a hogherd and a saint. I wonder how he did it."

Catherine is definitely a feminist trying to buck against the will of her father and decide her own fate in life, which is admittedly much harder in her time period. For a time in which men and women were considered two completely different beings, she refused to be the submissive ideal and considered herself equal to those around her regardless of gender. There of course is the trials and tribulations of growing up and hitting puberty, but her main focus is being able to do what she wants and experience the world like a lot of modern girls today. I wouldn’t say she’s the best role model, but she’s certainly one of the more realistic ones.

I certainly forgot some of the characters. Catherine is in fact the youngest of four, with three older brothers that she respects, loves, and hates in that order. Her father was a landed knight, so was completely at the bottom of the lord hierarchy when I thought she was at least slightly higher born. I can’t believe I forgot Catherine’s best friend Perkin, and her governess/nurse Morwenna, or just exactly how much she talks about the hygiene of the time. It’s actually quite enlightening as to what the daily life of a slightly noble girl was like at the time down to some of the most mundane and basic details that most books not dedicated to the subject forget. There’s a section of an entry where she’s jealous over someone’s privy being built over a stream because it means it doesn’t have to be mucked out, the detail is so precise. It’s really quite impressive.

Does Catherine, Called Birdy hold up after all of these years? I believe it does surprisingly well for a book that’s now 20 years old. It got me interested in the medieval period, which led me to fantasy and sword fighting. It’s a great read for any kid who feels like an outcast in their own time, and an interesting source for research ideas and unique methods of storytelling.

I highly recommend it to parents with kids in the elementary to middle school range in particular, but it doesn’t talk down to its audience so it’s appropriate for everyone.

If you have any recommendations for future reading or questions about the book as a whole, feel free to comment or contact me at activelynerdy@gmail.com. Catherine, Called Birdy is published by Harper Collins Publishers Inc. and can be found in most local libraries or through your local bookstore.

The things that influence us make us what we are. Thank you for letting me share a special part of myself with you.