Have you had a chance to check out Call the Midwife on PBS yet? If you haven't, check out my review of Season 1. It is a superb show based on the best selling memoriors of Jennifer Worth about midwifery and nuns in East London during the 1950s.
The casting, sets and story line is a wonderful, refreshing, change from the science fiction, police dramas and reality nightmares on TV these days.
I read Call the Midwife Shadows of the Workhouse last week and LOVED it. Shadows of the Workhouse focuses on the people who lived at Nonnatus House with Jennifer.
Synopsis:
The sequel to Jennifer Worth's New York Times bestselling memoir and the basis for the PBS series Call the Midwife
When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood's most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century.
Orphaned brother and sister Peggy and Frank lived in the workhouse until Frank got free and returned to rescue his sister. Bubbly Jane's spirit was broken by the cruelty of the workhouse master until she found kindness and romance years later at Nonnatus House. Mr. Collett, a Boer War veteran, lost his family in the two world wars and died in the workhouse.
Though these are stories of unimaginable hardship, what shines through each is the resilience of the human spirit and the strength, courage, and humor of people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds. This is an enduring work of literary nonfiction, at once a warmhearted coming-of-age story and a startling look at people's lives in the poorest section of postwar London.
There's Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House - she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank's parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse. The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a warning, but then Jennifer finds stolen jewels from Hatton Garden in the nun's room. These stories give a fascinating insight into the resilience and spirit that enabled ordinary people to overcome their difficulties.
The 411 by Maria:
I am completely intrigued by the story of the midwives; what brought them to the Nonnatus House and the lives of the people they served. Jane's story completely brought me to tears. The times were hard, people had to be hard but there was so much suffering that my heartaches for the times. The author does a wonderful job of rewinding life so that you can imagine the deplorable conditions, the struggles, the people and how hard life is for so many.
The book is compiled into three different part. Part 1 focuses on the Workhouse Children; Part 2 The Trial of Sister Monica Joan and Part 3; The Old Soldier. Each one reads beautifully and reminds us of how far we have come and how very fortunate we are.
Jennifer Worth |
The continuation of Jennifer Worth’s #1 UK bestselling
memoir trilogy, and the basis for the popular
BBC and PBS series, “Call the Midwife”
CALL THE MIDWIFE:
Shadows of the Workhouse
By
Jennifer Worth
Ecco Trade Paperback Original; On sale 1/22/13
Praise for
Jennifer Worth
“[Worth’s]
well-polished anecdotes are teeming with character detail of some of the more
memorable nurses she worked with.”
¾Publishers Weekly
“A warm, amiable
portrait of hands-on medical practice….A
charming tale of
deliveries and deliverance.”
¾Kirkus
“Jennifer Worth’s
memories of her years as a midwife were at once hilarious and
tremendously
moving.”
—Ayelet
Waldman, author of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
“Readers will fall in love with Call the Midwife. . . an affirmation of life during the best and
“Readers will fall in love with Call the Midwife. . . an affirmation of life during the best and
worst of
times.”
— Elizabeth
Brundage, author of The Doctor's Wife
“With deep professional knowledge of midwifery and an unerring eye for the details
“With deep professional knowledge of midwifery and an unerring eye for the details
of life in the London
slums of the Nineteen Fifties Jennifer Worth has painted a
stunningly vivid
picture of an era now passed.”
—Patrick Taylor,
MD, author of the New York Times bestseller An Irish Country Doctor
In the 1950’s, twenty-two year
old Jennifer Worth left her comfortable middle class life to work as a midwife
in the East End, the direst section of postwar London. During her time there as
a midwife she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she
became its most vivid chronicler. Worth’s masterfully written trilogy of
memoirs have since become the basis for the smash BBC series “Call the Midwife”
and have all been #1 bestsellers in the UK. PBS just finished airing the
first season of “Call the Midwife” to critical acclaim and will air the
second season in March 2013.
When Worth became a midwife in
the 1950s, working with the Nonnatus nuns in the East End of London, she joined
a community whose lives had often been touched by the shadow of the workhouse,
a persistant Victorian institution in which the poor¾ adults and children alike ¾
lived like prisoners. In CALL THE MIDWIFE: SHADOWS OF THE WORKHOUSE
(Ecco Trade Paperback Original; On Sale January 22, 2013), the follow up to her
critically acclaimed book, Call the Midwife, Worth tells the true
stories of the people whoses lves had been warped by such places. There is the
story of Peggy and Frank whose parents both died within six months of each
other leaving them as destitute children; the story of 7-year-old Jane whose
bubbly spirit was broken by the cruelty of the master of the workhouse; and the
story of Mr. Collett, a Boer War veteran, who lost his family in the two world
wars and ended up in a relic of the workhouse system.
As in Worth’s other books, what
shines through in these portrayals of triumph over tragedy is the unbreakable
resilience of the human spirit. CALL THE MIDWIFE: SHADOWS OF THE
WORKHOUSE provides more amazing examples of the strength, courage, and
humor of a people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Worth trained
as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, and was later ward sister
at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in London, then the Marie Curie Hospital,
also in London. Music had always been her passion, and in 1973 she left nursing
in order to study music intensively, teaching piano and singing for about
twenty-five years. Jennifer died in May 2011 after a short illness, leaving her
husband Philip, two daughters, and three grandchildren. Her books have all been
bestsellers in England.
Ecco will publish the 3rd installment of
the Call the Midwife memoir trilogy,
CALL THE MIDWIFE: FAREWELL TO THE EAST END,
on March 12, 2013.
CALL THE MIDWIFE: SHADOWS OF THE WORKHOUSE
By Jennifer Worth
Ecco Trade Paperback;
On Sale: January 22, 2013
Price: $15.99; 304
Pages; ISBN: 9780062270047
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy for my honest opinion.
I have not had the chance to watch,. I know my Mother would love this.
ReplyDeleteI do not watch so I will give this to my sister
ReplyDeletetiramisu392 (at) yahoo.com
Loved the show! My favorite is Chummy.
ReplyDeleteOH, ya gotta love Chummy! She's so sweet and bumbly.
ReplyDeleteh4schaffer at gmail dot com