I plan on trying again to include a cover image with this post. I'm thinking of an image of just one of the books, which should prevent the text from going all wonky and creating an appearance I don't like. If that works, I hope to work my way through my posted entries and adding one image to each of them. We'll see! :-)

The reader who recommended The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman has sadly passed on, but she sent many wonderful reads my way and this was one of them. This is a teen read about an orphan taken in and trained by a midwife. It's set in Medieval England and has excellent period descriptions. Life is hard and childbirth often resulted in death. The midwife tried to make births easier and safer.

Before the PBS series "Call the Midwife" came the book Call the Midwife: a Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth. The midwives live in a convent in the slums of London's East End. (Where the worst of the bombings had been). The young women who make this choice are trained by the nuns to provide health care services for pregnant women. Most babies were delivered at home, often in a cold water flat, sometimes with just candles for light. Jennifer Worth continues the telling of her years as a midwife in Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse, and Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End. (Set in the early 1950s).

The Midwife of Hope River: a Novel of an American Midwife, by Patricia Harman, is set in Appalachia during the Depression. Patience Murphy moves to an area of extreme poverty to help out those who are least likely to get any sort of help. She is there for her own reasons, too, since there are a few secrets in her past she'd like to keep hidden. As with other small communities, everyone ends up helping each other.

And finally, if you have (or are) enjoying the PBS series, be sure to take a look at The Life and Times of Call the Midwife: the official Companion to Seasons One and Two, by Heidi Thomas. More than just about how the actors were chosen, there's a bit of history here, too, from folks who lived in the area, or worked with the midwives in the 1950's. The area has long been rebuilt so it's all had to be reconstructed for the show. Some of it is CGI, some of it is not. The chapter on how the 'look' of the era was reproduced was most interesting. It's not as easy as you might think!

All this reading about babies caused me to get my copy of Rise Up Singing: the Group Singing Songbook, edited by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson off the shelf. (It was in my post of February 15, 2014) and hum my way through my favorite lullabies.

Reading Hermit With Dog