It was this interest that led her to her research into medieval England and its culture, which led to both Catherine, Called Birdy, a Newbery Honor Book, and The Midwife's Apprentice, her second book and winner of the prestigious Newbery Award in 1996.īoth Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice have earned many awards and honors including the Gold Kite Award for Fiction from the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and was chosen as one of School Library Journal's Best Books of the Year. She holds an MA in both Human Behavior and Museum Studies.Ĭushman has always been interested in history. Though she wrote poetry and plays as a child, Cushman didn't begin writing professionally for young adults until she was fifty.
Karen Cushman was born on Octoand grew up in a working-class family in Chicago, but never put much thought into becoming a writer. Karen Cushman's other books include Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice.In 1849, twelve-year-old California Morning Whipple, who renames herself Lucy, is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a rough California mining town. Dispelling the idea that only men went there to seek their fortune, Cushman focuses on the women and families who created homes and towns from a harsh landscape. Newbery Award-winning author Karen Cushman paints a vivid picture of life in the gold fields. The Ballad of Lucy Whipple is her firsthand account of her struggles in a rough and tumble land. With each day, the homesick Lucy is more and more determined to take life into her own hands and return to New England. There are no books, no school-nothing but dust and drunken miners. Reaching California, the Whipples set up a crude boardinghouse, and Lucy is put to work washing, cleaning, and baking pies in the rough mining town of Lucky Diggins. Moving is the last thing the outspoken twelve-year-old, Lucy, wants to do. In the summer of 1849, Lucy Whipple's mother packs up her household and her two young children, and leaves their home in Massachusetts for the gold fields of California.
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