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Karen Cushman was born Karen Ann Lipski in Chicago, Illinois, on October 4, 1941. Her only brother followed in May 1944. Her family left Chicago for the sunnier skies of California in 1952, when she was 10. “I was not thrilled with California,” she says. “It was too hot. I missed my grandparents and my dog and my public library. Some of those feelings came out forty-some years later in Lucy Whipple.” The young Cushman was an avid reader and an enthusiastic writer. One of her earliest works was an epic poem cycle based on the life of Elvis. In 1959 she entered Stanford University on a scholarship. It was the first time she realized she didn’t “have to get married and do laundry and spend my life making bologna sandwiches for my kids’ lunches.” For eleven years she was adjunct professor in the Museum Studies Department at John F. Kennedy University before resigning in 1996 to write full-time. Catherine, Called Birdy, her first book, was published in 1994 and named a 1995 Newbery Honor Book. The Midwife’s Apprentice grew from the image of a child sleeping on a dung heap, longing for a name, a full belly, and a place in the world. This novel won the Newbery Medal for 1996 and changed Cushman’s life. The Ballad of Lucy Whipple followed in 1996, and Matilda Bone, the story of a girl raised by a priest to know nothing of the world, came out in the fall of 2000. Rodzina, published in 2003, is the story of a Polish girl who boards an orphan train and questions everything along the route. Her latest book, The Loud Silence of Francine Green, features a 13-year-old character who is trying to understand the shadows of Communism in her world in 1949. Cushman was the recipient of the 2007 Kerlan Award at the University of Minnesota’s Children’s Literature Research Collection for her contributions to the Kerlan Collection. The research notes, drafts, revisions, and communication from each of her books can be reviewed there. Cushman now lives on Vashon Island in Washington with her husband, Philip, a psychologist, author, and professor. They have a grown daughter. Karen is now at work on a new book. “It took me forty-nine years of preparation—of reading and writing and making up stories in my head—to be ready to write. Now I do not intend to stop.” |
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The Loud Silence of Francine Green Francine Green doesn't speak up much, and who can blame her? Her parents aren't interested in her opinions, the nuns at school punish girls who ask too many questions, and the House Committee on Un-American Activities is blacklisting people who express unpopular ideas. There's safety in silence. Francine would rather lose herself in a book, or in daydreams about her favorite Hollywood stars, than risk attracting attention or getting in trouble. But when outspoken, passionate Sophie Bowman transfers into Francine's class at All Saints School for Girls, Francine finds herself thinking about things that never concerned her before—free speech, the atom bomb, the existence of God, the way people treat each other. Eventually, Francine discovers that she not only has something to say, she is absolutely determined to say it. Awards |
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Rodzina One of a group of orphans, 12-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski boards a train on a cold day in March 1881. She's reluctant to leave Chicago, the only home she can remember, and she knows there's no substitute for the family she has lost. She expects to be adopted and turned into a slave—or worse, not to be adopted at all. As the train rattles westward, Rodzina unwittingly begins to develop attachments to her fellow travelers, even the frosty orphan guardian, and to accept the idea that there might be good homes for orphans—maybe even for a big, combative Polish girl. Awards |
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Matilda Bone Karen Cushman assembles a cast of unforgettable characters in a fascinating and pungent setting: the medical quarter of a medieval English village. To Blood and Bone Alley, home of leech, barber-surgeon, and apothecary, comes Matilda, raised by a priest to be pious and learned, and now destined to assist Red Peg the Bonesetter. To Matilda's dismay, her work will not involve Latin or writing, but lighting the fire, going to market, mixing plasters and poultices, and helping Peg treat patients. Matilda is appalled by the worldliness of her new surroundings and yearns for the days at the manor when all she did was study and pray. Lonely and misunderstood, she seems destined for a fate as tragic as that of any of the sharp-tongued saints she turns to for advice. Awards |
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The Ballad of Lucy Whipple In 1849 a twelve-year-old girl who calls herself Lucy is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a small California mining town. There Lucy helps run a boarding house and looks for comfort in books while trying to find a way to return "home." Awards |
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The Midwife's Apprentice The girl known only as Brat has no family, no home, and no future, until she meets Jane the Midwife and becomes her apprentice. As she helps the sharp-tempered Jane deliver babies, Brat—who renames herself Alyce—gains knowledge, confidence, and the courage to want something from life: "A full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world." Medieval village life makes a lively backdrop for the funny, poignant story of how Alyce gets what she wants. Awards |
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Catherine, Called Birdy Catherine, a spirited and inquisitive young woman of good family, narrates in diary form the story of her fourteenth year—the year 1290. Awards |
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