English LAnguage Arts

In 1285, Toby Burgess is sent to be a page in his uncle's castle. While there, he keeps a detailed journal of everything that happens, from boar hunts and tournaments to baking bread and cleaning out toilets. Read Toby's diary and discover the triumphs-and tribulations-of life in a medieval castle.

One fine spring day, thirty pilgrims set off form harry Bailey's inn in Southwark for the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. The innkeeper makes an offer that none of the travelers can refuse: a free dinner at his inn, on their return, to the person who can tell the best story. So begins the assortment of tales from such varied characters as the Knight, the Wife of Bath, the Miller and many more.

On a frosty morning sometime early in the fourteenth century, in a village, somewhere in England, a girl known only as Brat was sleeping on a dung heap.

" You, girl. Are you alive or dead?"

When she opened her eyes, she saw an important-looking woman with a sharp glance and a sharp nose, and a wimple starched into sharp pleats. This woman was Jane the Midwife, and she needed a helper...

Thus begins the funny, wise, compassionate story of the homeless waif who became the midwife's apprentice---a person with a name and a place in the world.