Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Now a popular BBC television series (also available for checkout), Call the Midwife, is Jennifer Worth’s 2002 memoir detailing the time she spent as a midwife in London’s post-war East End district.  Written with empathy and humor, Worth’s account of her time serving the poorest of the poor is both moving and informative.  Following a devastating break-up, young Jennifer commits herself to training and residency, for nursing and midwifery, at the Nonnatus House (a pseudonym) convent in East London. The Nonnatus nuns have a long history of providing medical and social services to the cockney families living in tenements and slums near the Poplar dockyards, and house a number of nurse trainees and midwifery students.  Worth recounts for her readers various experiences she had during that time with her patients and other community members. These recollections range from heart-warming; including the Spanish-born mother who astonished everyone by saving and caring for her 25^th child, born prematurely at 28 weeks, to the despairing; the descriptions of squalor, neglect, and abuse (one neglectful mother left her two toddlers and infant, unsupervised in her filthy tenement apartment with a burning paraffin heater, while she took up trade at the behest of her abusive husband).  Despite the vagaries of life in the slums, nearly all characters are remembered with fondness.  This book would be a good fit for anyone who enjoys historical works or books on British life and customs. I ought to also mention that the audio-book, available for download from the Delphi Public Library via Overdrive, is a delight to hear with the snippets of both posh and cockney dialogue!

-Jennifer Wilson