Catherine, Called Birdy

Karen Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy is a sharp, funny diary for 11 year olds by a girl who'd do almost anything to avoid being married off.

What happens

It's 1290 and Birdy is nearly fourteen. Her brother Edward wants her to write an account of her days. She agrees mainly because it gets her out of spinning (which she hates with a passion).

Her father, meanwhile, has started eyeing her like a cow at market. Has she got all her teeth? Is her breath sweet? Suitors start turning up, and Birdy is ready for them.

The first gets soot-blacked teeth, mouse bones in her hair and a gap-toothed grin all through dinner. The next meets a "villager" in the road (Birdy, covered in mud) who warns him that the lady Catherine is stooped, witless and usually locked up. Who could blame her?

Reading it is like having a very rude, very clever friend whispering in your ear. The entries are short, and some are a single word ("Untangled."). She swears by "Corpus bones!", picks off fleas, doctors the household with garlic and goose fat, and keeps nineteen birds in cages in her room.

There's real warmth under all the grumbling too. Perkin the goat boy is her best friend. Her Uncle George comes home from the crusades with a shrivelled orange and the names of faraway cities, and she's suddenly swoony and confused about him.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is a frank book. Birdy's father hits her. Her mother loses a baby. There's talk of Birdy's chest, of her monthly courses not having started yet, and plenty of rude bodily humour. One night a group of Jewish travellers being forced out of England shelters in the hall, and Birdy expects horns and tails. She finds tired, ordinary families and an old woman telling stories, and the book is clear about which of those is true.

For a younger or more sensitive reader, that's a lot. For a confident reader who loves a heroine with LOTS of opinions and isn't easily shocked, Birdy will have them laughing out loud.

What to read next

If they like a girl who refuses to behave, try Evie's Ghost next. A furious thirteen-year-old slips back to 1814 as a housemaid, in a grand house where the daughter is being pushed to marry her father's rich friend.