Dora Rare is a young woman growing up in a small Nova Scotia village around the First World War. She is the only girl in generations of Rare men and learns midwifery from Miss Babineau, the community's older midwife and healer. As Dora delivers babies in difficult conditions, she offers women remedies, advice on contraception and comfort, and angers the local doctor, who wants to replace village midwives with hospital birth. Ami McKay mixes diary entries, recipes and newspaper clippings, and builds a picture of women's lives in early twentieth-century Canada.
Historical fiction readers who like detailed portraits of women's work and community will enjoy it. It also shows how medicine, men and tradition competed over childbirth.
Clear-cut; an easy read.
Best for readers like The Story Seeker. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2006
- Language
- EN
