The Midwife's Apprentice, written by Karen Cushman, is set in England during the Medieval Period-- sometime during the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The book offers a vivid description of village life, with its farms, cottages, and a manor house. Specific settings include the interior of homes, where Alyce helps to deliver babies, as well as a fair, an inn where Alyce lives and works, and even a dung heap! The author is very detailed in her descriptions, which makes this work of historical fiction feel all the more real. The story covers about two years of time, following Alyce from her stinking dung heap to her ending as Jane Sharp's apprentice.

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