Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village

Description

Newbery Medal Winner! Step back to an English village in 1255, where life plays out in dramatic vignettes illuminating twenty-two unforgettable characters. Maidens, monks, and millers' sons - in these pages, readers will meet them all. There's Hugo, the lord's nephew, forced to prove his manhood by hunting a wild boar; sharp-tongued Nelly, who supports her family by selling live eels; and the peasant's daughter, Mogg, who gets a clever lesson in how to save a cow from a greedy landlord. There's also mud-slinging Barbary (and her noble victim); Jack, the compassionate half-wit; Alice, the singing shepherdess; and many more. With a deep appreciation for the period and a grand affection for both characters and audience, Laura Amy Schlitz creates twenty-two riveting portraits and linguistic gems equally suited to silent reading or performance. Illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings by Robert Byrd - inspired by the Munich-Nuremberg manuscript, an illuminated poem from thirteenth-century Germany - this witty, historically accurate, and utterly human collection forms an exquisite bridge to the people and places of medieval England.

Laura Amy Schlitz is the author of the Newbery Medal-winning Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, the Newbery Honor Book and New York Times bestseller Splendors and Glooms, and several other books for young readers. A teacher as well as a writer, Laura Amy Schlitz lives in Maryland. Robert Byrd teaches children's book illustration at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He is the author-illustrator of many books, including Leonardo: Beautiful Dreamer; Finn Maccoul and His Fearless Wife; and The Hero and the Minotaur. He also illustrated Laura Amy Schlitz's first book for children, The Hero Schliemann, about the life of a nineteenth-century amateur archaeologist. Robert Byrd lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Schlitz is a talented storyteller. Her language is forceful, and learning slips in on the sly. -The New York Times Bolstered by lively asides and unobtrusive notes, and illuminated by Byrd's stunningly atmospheric watercolors, [the monologues] bring to life a prototypical English village in 1255. -Publishers Weekly (starred review) Brilliant in every way. -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Outstanding. -School Library Journal (starred review) A vivid, convincing portrait of medieval adolescence. -Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review) A rewarding choice for performance or for reading aloud in the classroom. -Booklist (starred review)