35. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! - Laura Amy Schlitz

Illustrated by Robert Byrd
For: Children
Pub: 2007
2008 Newbery Award
Pages: 86
Rating 5/5
Finished (2nd time) Aug. 10, 2008

This really is a brilliantly conceived and written book, deserving of the Newbery. Laura Schlitz, a school librarian, created 21 short "plays", so that a class could perform it and all would have relatively equal parts. Each "play" is told from the point-of-view of one of the children living on a generic medieval manor in late13th century England. All but two are monologues, two are poems for two voices, some are prose, most poetry, some rhyme, all are loaded with information, great vocabulary words, and just enough footnotes to help the reader but not overwhelm. Schlitz has inserted six essays that she calls "A Little Background." These follow the child/speaker that she feels needs extra clarification (the Three-Field System, Medieval Pilgrimage, The Crusades, Falconry, Jews In Medieval Society, and Towns and Freedom). You can feel the fleas, smell the dung, shiver in the cold, and become totally absorbed in the village and life of this sobering time.

I would love to sit down and brainstorm with Laura Schlitz! I'd love to share ideas about the numerous ways this book can be used in a classroom. I plan to use it this year with my sixth graders as their central literature for the medieval period - I can imagine it becoming a touchstone text - and I can't wait!