Matilda Bone

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cushman, Karen. 2000. MATILDA BONE. New York, NY: Clarion Books. ISBN 0395881560

SUMMARY
"Fourteen-year-old Matilda, an apprenctice bonesetter and practitioner of medicine in a village in medieval England, tried to reconcile the various aspects of her life, both spiritual and physical" (CIP).

ANALYSIS

I thought this book was a interesting, engaging, and unusual perspective on life in the Middle Ages.

Matilda is at first unlikable. She's a proud and contemptous. What Matilda lacks in compassion she makes up for in overblown piety. We see, in her first interaction with a (human) patient at Peg's, that she begrudges a young mother and her sick child the bread and sausage Peg gives them: "She wished Mistress Peg would think of others who might be hungry before she gave thier dinner away" (36).

As readers we get to see her transformation into a kind and self-confident young woman. By the end of the novel, after nursing her friend Tildy back to health, Matilda recognizes that she has valuable gifts to offer the world and that she is a worthy person in her own right. Margery tells her "You used the skills you have: your quick thinking, good sense, your strength and your prayers, your friendship" (150). We see that everyday life may be different today than it was in Medieval England, but teenage girls are still struggling with the same issues.

In MATILDA, Cushman also deals with another common Young Adult issue, self-determination. When Matilda arrives on Peg's doorstep, she is thinking speaking and acting from the script given to her by Father Leufredus, her guardian at the Manor. Matilda moves from parroting at the beginning, "Father Leufredus advises against earthly attachments, for they take our minds away from God and Heaven" to coming to her own more compassionate (and in my view, Godly) conclusions at the end (18). Matilda learns to value kindness and practical good works over hypocritical theologies and empty learning.

One important aspect of her character development that really comes through for the reader is Matilda's shift in perspective on her life at the Manor. Early in the book, readers hear of life at the Manor as heaven on earth, but we realize slowly as Cushman reveals more of Matilda's character, that in fact her life has been very isolated and lonely, with no real friends of loved ones. Matilda finally realizes this too, and Cushman uses her epiphany as a catalyst for her further changes in thinking. Several concrete acts punctuate Matilda's changing worldview; the nursing of Effie, the gift of her coat to help a friend, and finally, her loyal treatment of Tildy. Once Matilda realizes she has gone from being merely tolerated at the Manor to being valued and loved as Peg's apprentice, she embraces her new life and friendships contentedly.

Cushman does a good job of including the reader in Peg and Margery's winking patience with Matilda. The book features a strong supporting cast of characters, memorable and full of subtle lessons for Matilda. Cushman does an excellent job of weaving in historical details that flesh out the life of regular people in that time and place. The preeminence of the church, even in Matilda's thoughts, will seem strange to today's middle schoolers, but it was the center of life then. The fascinating medical trivia is frequently disgusting, but always interesting. And Cushman does a good job with one difficult aspect of the Middle Ages, the delicacy of life. Early in the story we hear Margery tell of a woman dying in childbirth, and throughout the story characters become sick and/or die. Life was much more perilous than it is now (in this country). Students may be astonished to learn that the only defenses were basically God and folk remedies. A cold or a cut could mean death, and Peg's work as a bonesetter is terrifyingly important.

My problems with the book were few, but I felt that Matilda was hard to like for at least the first half. Her development was SLOW and frustrating. By the time Matilda, at the -very end- of the book, finally decides she should value Margery's kindness over Master Theobold's urinalysis, I was ready to scream. In addition, the novel suffers from strange and jerky pacing, and odd characterization decisions. Much of the relationship building with important secondary characters, like Tildy, takes place offstage.


REVIEWS
"Matilda's pride at being able to read and write, and her initial disdain of Peg, Peg's husband Tom, Margery the physician, and the other humble denizens of the area is palpable. Matilda's Latin oaths ("Saliva mucusque!" or "spit and slime") and her mental conversations with the saints provide humor, and her growth in self-knowledge as well as her friendships with both young and old in her new community keep listeners sympathetic." SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

"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...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.

CONNECTIONS
This novel, being from a strongly feminine point of view, is probably unlikely to engage boys who aren't interested in reading anyway. There are descriptions of grossly humorous (though historically accurate) medical treatments, but not enough to draw in the boys I remember from middle school. I think it works best on a voluntary basis. It's certainly bursting with information about life in England in the Middle Ages, and from a perspective that's not often alluded to in history textbooks. It would be interesting as part of a small group of books, including perhaps Avi's CRISPIN, or for younger students, SALADIN (for a different worldview on the time period). Students could form some coffeeshop-esque book clubs and choose a book, maybe MATILDA, to discuss. At the end they could present a brief report on the Middle Ages from the perspective of the characters in the book they read. I think a book like MATILDA, with such fleshed out characters, is likely to draw some passionate responses.