[.ca] The Borning Room (ISBN 0064470997)

The Borning Room Book Review:
The Borning Room is narrated by young Georgina Lott during the 1800's. Her house was built by her grandfather in 1820 with a borning room behind the kitchen. The room was used for delivering babies and for the ill to stay in so they wouldn't leave any diseses in their rooms. Georgina tackles growing up with hardships and happieness. She vows not to have babies until she witnesses her own mother deliver Zeb, her baby bother. All the happieness and greif happens in the borning room with family and friends...Paul Fleichman is the talented writer of The Borning Room who writes with a thoughtful heart. This is an easy book to read and I would recomend this book to girls who like to read about girls from the past. I enjoyed this book and hope that you'll get to read it someday and like it too!

Not for my family:
There were two things that really bothered me about this book, although usually I love historical fiction. The first was the author's attitude toward childbirth. The story's "Mama" is successfully guided through two difficult deliveries, one involving righting a breech presentation, attended by a midwife and former slave woman respectively. The third time, the family makes the (literally) fatal mistake of asking a male medical doctor, who advocates pain relief for labor, to assist at the birth. Not only do Mama and the baby not survive, but the existence of a still-living twin is deduced only by the canny midwife, who arrives in the nick of time to save its life. The contrast is hardly subtle: natural childbirth with a midwife = healthy delivery; medical doctor and pain medication = dead mother and baby. This is a pretty disturbing antithesis to set before the young girls who will be reading this book. Far beyond this, however, is the author's attitude toward Christianity. The Grandfather of the book is a loving, spiritual, freethinking man who spends Sundays "worshipping" out in nature, whose observations of water, flowers, and trees lead him to "fresh speculations about the universe." It's not clear if Grandfather believes in one God or is a pantheist, and it doesn't really matter, but when he has a stroke and is on his deathbed, nosy Christian neighbors from miles around come and relentlessly preach a Bible-thumping, hellfire and brimstone series of lectures to convince him to repent of his wicked ways. These intolerant zealots believe that "the Bible \ois\c the only word of the universe's only god," and the feeble old man's final days are spent resisting them. Well, I happen to be a Christian who believes that the Bible is God's word, but neither I nor any other Christians I know would behave this way to a sick old man. I am offended by this portrayal of every Christian in the story as harsh, unloving and bigoted. I would venture to say that a book showing Jews, Muslims or Buddhists in such a stereotypical way would never be recommended for young people. I certainly won't limit my children to books which are explicitly Christian, but I also have no need for ones which openly demonstrate scorn for this faith.

Fleishman Strikes a 5 again!:
As I read reviews of Fleishman's work, it seems that he definitely strikes more of a chord with adults, than with younger people for the most part. Reading his work as an adult is very meaningful, because I've experienced life a bit more and want to ponder on the world around me. I read this book and was struck by the wonderfully vivid accounts of nature. I truly felt I was there, walking among the trees, opening doors and windows and cupboard drawers. This is the first book I've ever read that I wanted to reread even before I had finshed it.

Alis Review of The Borning Room:
The Borning Room is about a woman named Georgina telling about her life. When she was little she struggled with the idea of her mom having another baby after she had her. She thought that you got pregnant by swallowing a water melon seed. One day Georgia was walking through the woods and stumbled upon an old African American woman named Cora. She was a slave. Back then it was illegal to hide runaway slaves but Georgina didn't care. She took Cora back to her barn and gave her new clothes which she stole from her mother and her sister. One day when her father was away with her grandfather, her mother went into birth. Georginas mother sent her sister to fetch the doctor who lived far away, leaving Georgina to take care of the mother. For some reason the baby wasn't coming out so Georgina ran out side to get Cora for help. Cora delivered the baby boy safely just as the father , grand father, and sister returned. Georgina felt that she was a big part in having the baby so she took care of it very well. His name was Zeb. Her father and grandfather took Cora safely to the water to go to Canada. A couple years later, Georgina and Grandfather had a spiritual "church service" in they're back yard. Shortly after that grandfather died. They family was very depressed but tried they're hardest to move on. Three years later, when the only children left in the house was Georgina and Zeb and they're older sister, Georginas mother had gotten pregnant again. This time they didn't use Mrs. Radtke for the doctor, like they had used every other time. Instead, they used a young doctor who had medicine for labor pain. He made everyone leave the room. This made Georgina angry because she had helped with Zebs birth and she wanted to help with this one too. SO she snuck to see through the window and to her surprise she saw her mother lying on the bed...dead. The first baby died but there was still another one in her stomach and the doctor didn't even know. It was Georginas aunt who saw this. From then on she thought of the baby as her own. Years passed on slowly. Luciella, the older sister had gotten married and left. Then one day Zeb and the baby had gotten sick. The baby cured but Zeb was still very sickly. His teacher who was staying with them for a while helped bring him back to health. Shortly after Georgina and him got married. Georgina had children of her own, and of course, her doctor was Mrs.Radtke. I think The Borning Room was a very well written book. It was very interesting once you start getting to the middle because that is when more intriguing things start to happen like the mother having a baby and what not. I thought that the beginning was a little boring for me because it didn't have very much fun and exciting things happening yet. It was basically just her introducing characters and her self but once i got into the book I enjoyed it alot!! I would reccomend this book to any girl form ages 10 and up because some things younger girls wouldn't understand and i don't think boys would like it very much. I think the theme of The Borning Room was that life goes on no matter what may happen on while your living it.

A moving and insightful historical novel:
"The Borning Room" is a superb historical novel by Paul Fleischman. The title refers to a room in a rural Ohio house where babies are born. The story is told by a first person narrator: Georgina Lott, who is born in 1851. Georgina's story spans from the time of her birth to the era of World War I. With compassion and insight, Fleishman covers the cycles of life, death, and rebirth in Georgina's family as the decades pass. Through his characters Fleischman explores many important themes and events in American history: the abolitionist movement and the "underground Railroad," the Civil War, women's suffrage, folk medicine, ethnic diversity, and more. Benjamin Franklin's writings emerge as oft-cited texts for Georgina's family. I was particularly interested by Fleischman's depiction of the increasing religious and spiritual diversity of the U. S. in the late 19th century. Some of his characters are religious nonconformists, or are interested in spiritualism. Fleischman is, I believe, historically accurate here. The 19th century was a time of great religious nonconformity and experimentation in the U.S. To better appreciate this aspect of Fleischman's fictional family portrait, consider the poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the spread of new religious movements like Mormonism and Christian Science in the 19th century. Fleischman writes in a starkly beautiful prose, and has populated Georgina's world with some truly wonderful characters. Georgina herself is a memorable creation. She is, in my opinion, a "soul sister" to many other great female characters in American literature: Zora Neale Hurston's Janie (from "Their Eyes Were Watching God"), Willa Cather's Alexandra (from "O Pioneers!"), and many more. I highly recommend "The Borning Room."