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Matilda Bone

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Orphaned Matilda is not at all pleased when she arrives at Blood and Bone Alley to become an assistant to Red Peg the Bonesetter. She is a religious, well-educated girl who can’t picture herself doing dirty chores or helping sickly patients.
Each day is very different from her former quiet life. Matilda’s not used to being around so many people who are coming and going, laughing and eating. Not one of them seems interested in prayer or study.
Self-centered Matilda thinks no one understands her. But Peg does, and gives her time to get used to this new way of life and teaches her through kindness and friendship. Matilda is as surprised as anyone when she begins seeing the world around her in a different way.
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      A new medieval heroine bursts upon the literary scene in Cushman's latest novel, created as only Cushman can concoct such a girl. The orphan, Matilda, is an excessively pious young woman, obsessed with the saints whose voices chorus in her ear and the recollected wisdom of her former teacher and mentor, Father Leufredus. She is dropped into Blood and Bone Alley to become servant, and later apprentice, to the wise and infinitely tolerant Red Peg, the Bonesetter. Tony Award-winning actress Janet McTeer meets the challenge of a wide-ranging cast of quirky characters, among them Peg's witty and sentimental husband, Tom; the rhyming bloodletter Horanswith Leech; the officious and deceitful Master Theobald, the Wonderworker; the earnest kitchenmaid, Tildy; and the gruff yet kindly Doctor Margery Lewes. A delightful tale is enhanced by the audio format! T.B. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 11, 2002
      Orphaned 13-year-old Matilda becomes apprenticed to Peg, a bonesetter in medieval times. "Matilda is less winning than her supporting cast. Fiery Peg, her witty husband and her circle of friends will be the characters readers remember," wrote PW. Ages 10-up.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 16, 2000
      Fans of Cushman's previous medieval novels (Catherine, Called Birdy; The Midwife's Apprentice) may be disappointed with this historical adventure set in "Blood and Bone Alley" in the town of Chipping Bagthorpe. Unlike Catherine and Brat, heroines whose combination of rebelliousness and resourcefulness made them instantly likeable, 13-year-old Matilda is less winning than her supporting cast. The daughter of a wealthy lord's clerk and a mother who fled soon after her birth, Matilda finds herself orphaned when her father dies. As the novel opens, her self-appointed guardian, Father Leufredus, has just dropped her off at the meager lodgings of Red Peg the Bonesetter to learn Peg's trade. Fresh from the intolerant Father's tutelage, Matilda, in her zealous piety, snubs Peg and inadvertently thwarts the woman's work: more than once, while lost in prayer, the girl ruins a salve or a simple meal of porridge. Thus readers don't get the same insider's view of the bonesetter's apprenticeship that they saw of midwifery through Brat's eyes. The promise of a potential villain, Master Theobold, "the leading physick" who prizes money over healing, is never realized; the development of Matilda's friendship with another girl takes place mostly offstage; and, strangely, there are two denouements, in which Matilda makes the same realization that she has been wrong about Peg (one involving an ailing stranger whom she is treating, the other the apothecary's apprentice). Fiery Peg, her witty husband and her circle of friends will be the characters readers remember. Ages 10-14.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:5.7
  • Lexile® Measure:850
  • Interest Level:4-8(MG)
  • Text Difficulty:4-5

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