Skip to main content

The Midwife's Apprentice

 Summary of Book: The Midwife's Apprentice was written by Karen Cushman and is the recipient of the Newberry Award. This story is set in medieval England and the story is set around a homeless, orphan girl with the first name we're introduced to her having as Brat. Brat lives going from village to village, working when she can and stealing when she can't work and needs food. Eventually she ends up in a village and sleeps in poop. She is found by the towns Midwife who takes pity on her and allows her to come and assist the Midwife (or Jane Sharp) in exchange for room and a little bit of food. The situation proves to be beneficial for both parries as Brat, now named Beetle by the Midwife, and the Midwife seem to need each others help. Whenever the Midwife goes to perform a delivery, she never lets Beetle see, but Beetle will usually sneak around and observe through different ways. Beetle also saves a cat from some boys that are abusing it and names it Purr. Eventually, Beetle begins to earn respect around the village and the townspeople start to even like her which helps to boost her confidence more and more. And after somebody mistakes her for being literate, she decides to change her name to one that others and she would respect more and demands to be called Alyce. Her confidence grows even more when she delivers a baby without the help of the Midwife. However, this does not go in Alyce's favor because the Midwife becomes jealous and threatened. And then one day a pregnant lady asks for Alyce to deliver her baby and when Alyce is unable and has to ask the Midwife for help, she is so humiliated that she and Purr leave town. They end up working at an inn and then Alyce learns how to read. During this time she realizes that she really did enjoy being a Midwife and it is her passion, so she goes back to the town with the Midwife and asks her if she can be her apprentice and promises that this time, she will not run away when the going gets tough and will not try to take over. The Midwife agrees and by calling her "Beetle" as before. 

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would use this book in my classroom because the main theme of the story is never giving up which would be a good idea to teach to students. 

Appropriate age group for this book: 9-12

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might use this book in the classroom: A couple of ideas on how to incorporate this book into a classroom is to set up questions while reading through each chapter. At the end of the book the teacher could have the students do a story map or character analysis.

I personally would have questions set up after each chapter to judge the students engagement with the story. These questions would include how the character seemed to change through the chapter, or how a student could personally relate to the characters in the chapter just read, or what they learned personally. 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wonder

    Summary of Book: This story is about 10 year old Augustus who was born with Treacher Collins syndrome. He has had 27 surgeries up to this point of his life and has a deformed face that people will stare at. This book basically follows Auggies journey as he goes into the school system for the first time in his life. It follows as he makes friends, but also gets bullied really badly. This book is also very unique in that chapters will be told from other characters view points. Such as his sister Olivia and how she gets tired of all the attention that Auggie gets. And then one of Auggie's classmates, Summer, in how she was only nice to Auggie out of pity, but now she is kind to him because she genuinely likes him and his personality. In the end of the book, Auggie has formed a close unit of friends and gets an award from his school. It ends very happily and well. Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I don't think I would use this book in my classroom becau...
Post a Comment
Read more

Balloons Over Broadway

   Summary of Book: Balloons over Broadway was written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. The story starts with talking about Tony Sarg and that he became a Marionette man when he was only 6 years old. When he grew uo he moved to London to continue to create his marionettes and eventually moved to New York where his popularity continued to grow. Macy's asked Sarg to create a "puppet parade" for his holiday window. And his mechanical marionettes danced and thrilled the little children who passed. Macy's decided to create a parade for immigrants that would include a street carnival from all over the world. As the parade went on, it grew more and more until it had grown to much and the real animals scared the children to much. So Macy's requested Tony to change the animals. So he decided to make much larger marionettes that could be held up in the sky. However, to make sure they were not to heavy, he made them balloons and filled them with helium. He made sure they we...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Tale of Despereaux

    Summary of Book: The Tale of Despereaux was written by Katie Dicamillo and is the recipient of the Newberry Award. The story follows the very brave, noble mouse Despereaux. He does not fit in with the rest of his family as he is able to see and actually enjoys reading. This story follows several intertwining stories involving a rat in a dungeon that plots to get revenge on the princess and uses a girl that was sold by her father to do so. And we see that Despereaux is in love with the princess and wants to save her from the rats evil plot. In the end, we see Despereaux was able to save the princess and they remain best friends, the rat is given free range of the castle, and the girl is reunited with the father that sold her and he is so remorseful.  Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I don't think I would use this book in my classroom because I'm not sure I see the value of having my students read this book. The fairytale aspect wasn't really the...
Post a Comment
Read more