The Midwife's Apprentice

What do you want? Every teenager needs someone to ask him that question. I remember having no idea what I wanted as a teenager. Graduation from high school came as an utter shock. My world collapsed, and for the first time I seriously asked myself, "Now what? Who am I going to be?" In Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice, Alyce is confronted with this question. Her answer is "a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world."

From the start, Alyce has been steadily pursuing what she wants with an inquisitive and industrious mind. As the story opens, the midwife finds her sleeping in a dung heap and derisively calls her Dung Beetle. As demeaning as the name is, it reflects her ingenuity; she slept in the warm dung to keep herself from freezing. Throughout the book, Beetle keeps her eyes open and learns what she can, whether it is listening in while the midwife delivers babies, or cleaning up the inn close to the old scholar while he teaches his cat to read. She's not afraid to try things either. This is most notably shown when the Devil comes to town and all her enemy's vices are exposed. However, this quality is put to its greatest test when she is asked to help Emma Blunt through a difficult delivery.

So many things contribute to Alyce finding her place in the world. A merchant compliments her hair and gives her a comb. She makes a friend of an enemy. She makes another friend through a compassionate act. She tries something a second time and learns perseverence. She gains in dignity in the reader's eyes long before she does in her own.

Maybe most important of all, she decides that she will have a name. How important a name is! "My name is Alyce." This is a book about a poor girl who simply wants a place in her village, but as she demanded that others call her Alyce, I was reminded of the movie Gladiator: "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius."

The Midwife's Apprentice was one of the most satisfying coming of age stories I have read. On top of that, the book gives a full picture of life in a Medieval village in England. Cushman gives an author's note at the end, supplying a short history of midwives. By that point, she had me as curious as Alyce was about all the strange practices, and I read it eagerly.