Catherine, Called Birdy

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Summary: A Very Confusing Book!
Review: I read the book Catherine, Called Birdy and I did not understand it at all! I read it in 5th grade and it was very hard to keep up with. It is a girl's journal entries in medevil times and all the things going on in the book make it too complicated to be able to understand and put all the concepts together

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Summary: Awesome Character Develpment in Super Book
Review: The book Catherine Called Birdy is definitly a classic. This book, written in the form a diary, contains good character development, which is an element essentail to super writing. When reading this book, one really comes to know the character of Catherine, a stubborn, clever, yet friendly girl who is fourteen. Once I finished reading this book, I felt as if I had known Catherine her whole life! The character development was great! Another thing I liked about this book was that it was written in the form of a diary. For those of you who liked The Diary of Anne Frank, you would certainly like this book, although it is not as difficult a read as Anne Frank's diary. Anyhow, this book is great and I love how it is in diary form! This book also has a cool plot with a neat twist at the end. This book was somewhat suspensful, and I couldn't seem to put it down towards the end. The setting of this book played an important role. It was set several hundred years ago where the mannerisms of people were very different of those nowadays. This book is great. I would reccommend this book to anyone, but especially to girls ages ten to fourteen. This book is awesome and I loved it!

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Summary: "...Birdy Flies"
Review: I may have read this book 100 times. No, wait, maybe 500 times. It's a simple story that you can pick up anywhere, but there's a classic feeling in the text. I think most of us can relate to Birdy's situation, and hope that we would be strong enough to do the same as she did. Wonderful book.

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Summary: Loved it !
Review: A wonderful story... I loved it. Read it !

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Summary: I can definitly see why they gave it a Newberry award.
Review: Dear all who are thinking about reading this book, I found Cathrine, Called Birdy a delightful book that (I'll admit) went into detail a little farther than was neccesary. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading this diary of a strongwilled girl and you will too if you enjoy not only reading about a people in the Mideval ages but also if you are interested in how they lived ( I now realize indoor plumbing is a wonderful thing) I hope you do not let the gritty and sometimes icky details scare you away from this truly facsinating book.

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Summary: A story of a girl and her troubles during the Middle Ages
Review: This book was about a girl who lived during the Middle Ages. It isn't a true story but it is made to be like her diary. She talks about how her father make her marrie awful men and she finds ways to get out of them. I didn't like the book until I got to the ending. It takes a while to get into it the book. But after I read it I did kind of like it because it gives you a very good idea what it was like back then and all the things that we today do so differently. I would recommend this book to people who like to read books about the Middle Ages.

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Summary: What's in Store For Catherine?
Review: If Catherine is supposed to be a lady, how come sewing, embroidery, and hemming bore her? If Catherine is supposed to be married quickly, soundly, and profitably, how come all her suitors are snotty and annoying?

I wasn't sure I was going to like this book because I normally don't like historical books. After reading it a bit, I discovered that I was actually into the plot of Catherine and her schemes to become a Crusader, a monk, and more. I couldn't put the book down! Catherine is the perfect book to have! If you like to read about people who scheme and are sometimes disagreeable with their parents. This book would be great for a sixth grader or above beacuse some of the words they use are strange. I had to stop and look up some of the words.

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Summary: Catherine vs Shaggy Beard
Review: Catherine hates her father; the slob. A long time ago, in the medieval days, fathers could choose their daughter's husband; even if it was the meanest, scariest, ugliest, person ever. After Catherine's father meets Shaggy Beard, he asks him if he wants to marry his daughter. Catherine doesn't like Shaggy Beard at all. What will she do? Catherine will sacrifice one thing and make her life miserable. I think this book is very good!!! It is exciting, funny, adventurous, and very detailed. Catherine, Called Birdy is realistic fiction. Many of the characters have very good desriptions. Catherine, Called Birdy takes place in the medieval times and gives young readers a great picture of life long ago. In my opinoin, I believe this book rates four stars.

Rating:
Summary: VERY inaccurate
Review: It was an ok book. But I must say: as a big reader of books about the middle ages, "Catherine,called Birdy" is not all THAT accurate when it comes to its historical setting.

The ironic thing is, is that people of the 13th century, DID bathe back then, and they WERE very clean, infact cleaner than us. The average person took three baths a day,and for Karen Cushman to say that they were dirty pigs and ignorant, is a bit hypocritical.

Another thing that Catherine(the book's main character) keeps mentioning, is that the average person has either their teeth missing or that their teeth were yellow. I'd like to contradict this fact by pointing out that the people of the middle ages, though they did not brush their teeth, always flossed, which is actually more important than brushing, and most of all, their intake of sugar was a lot smaller than it was today, therefore there would be less cavaties back then and less tooth loss...and their teeth were MUCH whiter than the people of today.

And as for their manners they were quite the same as they are today.

On the otherhand the book wasn't terrible excluding the fact that its historical part was obviously not wriiten by a 13th century historian. So my final say on this book is, not worth buying, but if you see it at the library go ahead and check it out, and ignore the historical part in this book, because that part is as fictuous as the characters.

Rating:
Summary: THE PRIVY IS BURNING!
Review: Catherine, a teenaged girl living in England around 1290, has found out that her father has picked a husband for her. Catherine doesn't want to marry someone of her father choice. She's not your average Thirteenth Century, "Sure papa, I'll marry him" girl. So she puts up a fight and will not marry someone her father chooses. When she finds out that she is doomed, she runs away to her uncle's house. When she gets there she figures out that she will always be herself no matter who she marries. Then she...

If you want to find out the ending you should read the book yourself.

I give it a five because it teaches about that time period. It also teaches about how women didn't have many rights. The main reason I liked it was because it was funny, like the time when Catherine burns the privy with a suitor in it!