The Midwife's Apprentice

And so begins my sidequest, if you will, to read all kinds of young adult books I've owned for ages but never bothered to open. First up was The Midwife's Apprentice, a Newbery-winning 117-page quickie from Karen Cushman. Set in England around 1300, it tells the story of a young girl who starts out as a homeless orphan and becomes the heroine of a village through her virtuous, kind, and noble actions. The plot was formulaic, but I was fine with this, as I'd rather see a "tried and true" method in place than a bizarre fiasco with convoluted or messy dynamics. My biggest issue with this book was that parts of it seemed unfinished. At only 117 pages, there was certainly room for more. I'm not saying the book felt too short; it just felt incomplete. The heroine's dark past is alluded to, once, in the middle of the book, with one sentence: "the girl dreamt about her mother that night, but forgot about it before she awoke." Why even touch on her past if that's the furthest into it that you're going to delve? Another plot point involves the girl caring for a young boy, also homeless, who she finds. He reminds her of herself and even reminds the other villagers of her. Most assume the two are brother and sister. A big deal is made over one woman claiming the two must be twins. At this point, I thought we would learn that the two were in fact siblings, both cast away by their mother and left to fend for themselves. This was the highest my interest ever managed to get during the entire story - who could their mother be, and why is she casting away her children? Once again, the familial issue is never touched upon any further. So in the end we've got a nice, neat, mostly generic coming-of-age tale, but questions about the girl's backgound remain completely unanswered. Again, this would have been fine had Cushman never noted the sibling-like shared appearances or dreams of parents that she has, in fact, noted. At any rate, I suppose I'm starting to sound a little too critical, twenty-something and criticizing a children's book written 13 years ago. I'll wrap this messy recap up now, like such: I read it, I liked it enough, and I'm forging ahead without looking back to it.