Shaggy Beard wishes to take me to wife! What a monstrous joke. That dog assassin whose breath smells like the mouth of Hell, who makes wind like others make music, who is so ugly and old!

Corpus bones, I must make a plan. Luckily I am experienced at outwitting suitors . . .

Catherine's in trouble. her father is trying to marry her off to disgusting old Shaggy Beard, and her mother's determined to turn her into the perfect medieval lady. Will either of them succeed? Not if Catherine has anything to do with it!

Catherine, Called Birdy is Karen Cushman's funny and poignant novel about a 14-year-old girl's fight for freedom.

This book has been graded for interest at 12+ years.

There are 228 pages in this book. This book was published 2014 by Pan Macmillan .

Karen Cushman was born in Chicago and now lives in Oakland, California. She has a long-standing interest in history (she was Assistant Director of the Museum Studies Department at John F. Kennedy University in San Francisco) -particularly in the lives of ordinary people who lived at other times. She won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 1995 for The Midwife's Apprentice.