Wonderful Win: The Birth House

The Birth House by Ami McKay

Publisher: Harper Perennial

This is book 2 from the 6 book win from Page after Page.

About the book: An Arresting portrait of the struggles that women faced for control of their own bodies, The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare - the first daughter in five generations of Rares.

As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and unfulfilling sex lives. During the turbulent World War I era, uncertainty and upheaval accompany the arrival of a brash new medical doctor and his promises of progress and fast, painless childbirth. In a clash between tradition and science, Dora finds herself fighting to protect the rights of women as well as the wisdom that has been put into her care.

About the author: Ami McKay's work has aired on various Canadian radio programs. Her documentary, Daughter of Family G, won an Excellence in Journalism Medallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awards. Originally from Indiana, she now lives with her family in a former birth house in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia.

The Birth House
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Perennial, October 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-113587-3
416 pages