Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation:

Language: One mild swear word.  The use of ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ in a religious sense.  Talking down to servants.  Belittling language used towards servants.

Violence:  Johanna and company are threatened by mercenaries until they give them money.  Johanna’s mistress has a knife held to her throat.  Johanna is repeatedly hit by a large man for not doing her work to his expectations.  Johanna is attacked with a knife and forced upstairs by the man.  Another friend comes to defend her and is also threatened with a knife.  Johanna uses her dagger in self defense on a mercenary who is chasing her.  A young student slips on a rock while crossing a river and is seriously wounded.

Sexual Content:  Mention of out-of -wedlock intimacy.  Allusions to sexual harassment towards servants.  Johanna’s mistress has a reputation of having several children by different fathers.  Johanna is forced upstairs by a pilgrim.  She is saved by a friend. A young married pilgrim traveling with her old husband flirts with a young student accompanying them.

Adult Themes:  Johanna’s mother dies in childbirth along with the baby.  Her older sister marries and Johanna is forced to become a maidservant  to a ‘holy woman’.  The servants are treated as less than people.

Synopsis

Johanna is a maidservant of the well known holy woman Dame Margery Kempe.  Dame Margery hears the Lord speak to her daily and feels the pain and suffering of the Virgin Mary for her son.   Her gift, however, does not help her notice the pain and suffering of those around her.   When Dame Margery decides to go on a religious pilgrimage, she brings young Johanna with her to cook, wash, mend and care for the group of pilgrims she will travel with.  The journey brings many hardships, most of which arise from  the arguments between Madame Margery and her fellow travelers concerning her incessant preaching.  Relationships become so embittered that Dame Margery turns her back on the group and abandons them all, including Johanna.  The young maidservant is left on her own to find her way through foreign countries without any money, food or protection.  Johanna learns much from her adventures and in the end finds strength in herself and from the love of others.

This book was inspired by the 15th century auto-biography of the real Margery Kempe.  These were hard times for women, especially the young and the poor.  An eye opening look for young readers at life in early England.

©2010 The Literate Mother