the+executioner's+daughter

= = =The Exeuctioner's Daughter= by Laura E. Williams Copyright 2000

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Summary
Shunned from the rest of society, Lily and her family live outside the town walls in the one roomed cottage built by her father. Quite happy to spend her days in the forest collecting herbs for her parents, Lily's only friends are the sick or injured animals she nurses back to health. Then one day, she meets a boy from town. As their friendship develops, Lily is drawn closer to the town life she never knew, as well as the dark truth of her father's occupation. Always protected from the gruesome reality by her mother, Lily begins to realize the forboding ax wielding figure of her nightmares is in fact the father she loves. When her mother dies of fever, Lily is suddenly forced into the possition of executioner's assistant and now has to witness the terror she has always been sheltered from. __The Executioner's Daughter__ gives creative insight to what life in 1450 England might have been like for the family of an executioner.

Review
For a seventh grader, __The Executioner's Daughter__ is an extremely easy and short read. The language is fairly simple and the plot is not complicated. For these reasons, I would not call the book "a great read". However the ideas introduced towards the end of the book are intersting and noteworthy ones. The author clearly portrays the emotional struggle the main character goes through and her disgust of what she fears is her fate. By using basic language, the author still brings the reader into what she imagines life would be like for an executioner's daughter in the late Middle Ages. This is an impressive accomplishment but goes to show that the book is geared towards a younger audience. In general, I think this is a well researched and thought out book. I would recommend it for kids ages eight to ten.

What I Learned
From reading __The Executioner's Daughter__, I learned about the attitude people had towards executioners in the Middle Ages. Though they were not equal to peasants or serfs in ranking, they were often treated as such. In the book, the main character is taunted by other children and rotten food thrown at her. This was not because she was a mean girl or did anything bad, other people were simply scared of executioner's and their families. Executioner's and their families were not allowed to go to Church or attend any other public gathering besides executions. They were called to the lord's castle sometimes to inspect prisoners and such but they were not honored guests. People treated them as vile, unclean, scary, devilish things to be gotten away from as quickly as possible. They were often seccluded as if they had a contagious disease. Many midwives would refuse to attend the birth of a baby born to an executioner.

I also learned how you become an executioner. Unlike other jobs in the Middle Ages, the role of town executioner was not something you studied for as an apprentice before you took it on. You were born into it and you were pretty much stuck there. If you were the child of an executioner, no master of another trade would want to take you on as their apprentice. Your only chance at a different career would be to run away some place where nobody knew who you were. This is what the main character in __The Executioner's Daughter__ did. Another common way for a town to seccure an executioner, was to take a convicted prisoner who was to be executed and turn them into the executioner. That is how much people looked down upon the executioner, no one would want to do it unless it was their only option besides death.

What I Want To Know
When I read this book, it got me interested in the whole subject of Midieval executioners. __The Executioner's Daughter__ said hardly anything about what the executioner wore or what their clothes were made of. I'd like to know how the torture and execution tools were made, when each tool came into common use and what it's used for. I'm also curious if there were any woman executioners and if not why. While __The Executioner's Daughter__ gives much insight to the life of an executioner, it is written from the perspective of an executioner's daughter and not the executioner himslef. I now want to read a story told by an actual executioner to see if it's any different.