The STORK is COMING SOON

 Nicole, 37 ½ weeks

Bryan was not enthusiastic when I announced that I was going to read Ami McKay’s The Birth House aloud to him on one of our recent trips to Laredo.  By the end of Chapter 1, however, we were both hooked by the style of the writing and the story of how Dora is taught to be a midwife by Miss Babineau, a wonderful old Acadian woman who is suspected of witchcraft by the people she helps in a tiny, isolated Nova Scotian village.

Miss Babineau claimed, “The scent of a good groanin’ cake, a cuppa hot Mother’s tea and time.  Most times that’s all a mama needs on the day her baby comes.” 

In addition to Miss B's weird and interesting folk remedies given at the end of the book, there’s a recipe for the Groaning Cake. 

Nicole did not like the book as much as Bryan and I, and she was not at all impressed when I offered to make the cake.