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

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.

Author: Laura Amy Schlitz
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 12/23/2008
Pages: 96
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.74lbs
Size: 10.20h x 7.06w x 0.30d
ISBN: 9780763643324
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.6
Point Value: 2
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 115900 / Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village

About the Author
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.