Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Reviews
Park School Librarian Wins Newbery Medal for Children?s Literature
Laura Amy Schlitz Recognized for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village
Laura Amy Schlitz was awarded the 2008 Newbery Medal on January 14 for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village. The medal, named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery, is given annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The first Newbery was presented in 1922.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! began as a project for fifth grade students at The Park School of Baltimore, where she has been working as a Lower School librarian for 15 years. Laura explains, ?The [children] were studying the Middle Ages and were going at it hammer and tongs. I wanted them to have something to perform, but no one wanted a small part. So I decided to write monologues instead of one long play, so that for three minutes at least, every child could be a star.? Hugo, the lord?s nephew, Taggot, the blacksmith?s daughter; Mogg, the villein?s daughter; Nelly, the sniggler; and Barbary, the mud slinger are just a few of the 22 characters, each with his or her own story. These monologues were first performed by the fifth graders in 1997 and have been recited each year since then.
Laura?s work on Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! was initially funded by the F. Parvin Sharpless Faculty and Curricular Advancement Fund. This distinctive, endowed program at Park School supports important curricular development, enabling selected faculty to share expertise in intensive collaborative work, to draw on fresh input from outside professionals, to read, research, write, and discuss?all in the service of providing the best possible education for Park students.
Laura is also the author of three other books for children, The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy, A Drowned Maiden?s Hair: A Melodrama, and The Bearskinner.
The book is published by Candlewick Press and illustrated by Robert Byrd.
Read The Baltimore Sun?s front page coverage of Laura and her award-winning book.
Watch this segment of the "Today Show" with Laura.
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Other Accolades
From The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Laura Schlitz's Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! was chosen as a 2007 Blue Ribbon winner in non-fiction. Only five non-fiction selections were recognized as the best books of last year.
From The New York Times:
December 16, 2007
"Camelot, it?s not. Lowdy, for example, hates the fleas. The girl is not troubled by the lice ?raising families in my hair? and doesn?t really mind having to scrape the maggots off the cheese. But she helps her father, a varlet, tend the lord?s dogs, and fleas are one of the occupational hazards. So she prays for relief:
I itch in the cathedral
When I pray upon my knees:
God, You saved us from damnation;
Now save us from the fleas!
For the young people of Laura Amy Schlitz?s new book, 'Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From a Medieval Village,' life tends to be nasty, brutish and short. But young readers are also likely to find it engaging, affecting and occasionally giggle-worthy.
Schlitz, whose first novel, 'A Drowned Maiden?s Hair,' was warmly received last year, wrote 'Good Masters' for her students at the Park School in Baltimore, where she is a librarian. They were studying the Middle Ages, with catapult experiments, herbology and manuscript illustration. In an introduction, she says she wrote the book because 'I wanted them to have something to perform.' In 19 monologues and two dialogues from youngsters of the village, set off by woodcuttish illustrations by Robert Byrd, the book serves up the year 1255 ? lice, maggots and all. It?s easy to imagine youngsters, especially those of a mordant stripe, taking these dark verses to heart and preparing their own classroom presentations.
Schlitz is a talented storyteller. Her language is forceful, and learning slips in on the sly. She explains crop rotation through a boy who must plow the family fields after his father?s death and who confesses puzzlement over the concept of a field laying fallow. 'I don?t know why the fields have the right to rest when people don?t.'
The village is a fascinating place to visit, but you wouldn?t want to live there. 'Ale-drunk' fathers beat their families, and children beat each other. The lord controls the local economy so utterly that his subjects must grind their grain at the local miller, who takes the lord?s cut and then subtracts his own, blending in chalk dust to make up the weight of the stolen flour. Otho, the miller?s son, learns his father?s ways, and his attitude as well. 'It?s hunger, want and wickedness /that makes the world go ?round,' he says. His ambition is to grow up to be as wicked as dear old Dad, because that is the way of the world, a circle, like the miller?s wheel, 'and the wheel goes on forever.' Another rogue?s son plays his part in his father?s holy-cures scams, tricking people into giving alms. He, too, asks God for aid: 'Send us more fools,' he asks, and 'look after your foxes / as well as your sheep.'
It is bracing to see the Middle Ages without the rosy gloss many historical novels insist on bringing to the period. (Brief, easy-to-read footnotes and a bibliography give us some of Schlitz?s sources for her gritty portrait of daily medieval life.) This village stinks of dung and is sharp with the bitterness of poverty, wickedness and loss. But there are flashes of goodness and warmth as well. The mother of a girl named Mogg saves the family?s beloved cow from the clutches of a lord through cleverness born of desperation. Jack, Mogg?s half-wit brother, shows kindness to the hated Otho after the miller?s son takes a beating, and they cry together. The pathetic scene, and Jack?s belief that Otho shows his friendship by no longer joining in the other boys? taunts of 'Lack-a-wit / Numbskull / Mooncalf / Fool,' could even bring a lump to a grown-up?s throat."
A Review of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village from Horn Book
November/December 2007
Schlitz gives teachers a refreshing option for enhancing the study of the European Middle Ages: here are seventeen monologues and two dialogues that collectively create a portrait of life on an English manor in 1255. A plowboy, a knight's son, and a sniggler (eel-catcher), among other boys and girls ages ten to fifteen, say their pieces. Rhythm and style vary to suit each role, from breathless, thrusting phrases as a knight's son describes a boar hunt to the lighthearted rhyming of a shamelessly dishonest miller boy. Schlitz conveys information about class, attitudes, and social practices through the monologues, footnote-like sidebars, and six spreads titled "A Little Background" that offer fuller explanations of farming practices, the Crusades, falconry, and more. Schlitz acknowledges some of the nastier aspects of this oft-romanticized period (such as its persecution of Jews), but in gentle, moderate language. Byrd's pristine, elegant pen-and-ink illustrations in opulent colors make the book almost too visually appealing, belying the realistically dirty, stinky conditions described in the text.
Bearskinner Reviews
From The Washington Post:
December 9,2007
"Exquisitely adapted from a Grimm tale by Laura Amy Schlitz, and illustrated by Max Grafe, this puts every value you want your kids to have -- seriously -- into what would be a page-turner if you weren't so inclined to linger over the haunting images. A returning soldier brought low by war finds a way to reclaim his soul, taking a fantastic path to a very real truth. This is one of the rare ones you give your children with an eye to its finding its way to your grandkids."
From the Wall Street Journal:
November 10, 2007
"They say when a man gives up hope, the devil walks at his side. So begins this story: A soldier marched through a dark wood, and he did not walk alone." Laura Amy Schlitz is one of the finest storytellers being published today, and she does not disappoint with this magnificent retelling of an obscure tale from the Brothers Grimm. In the story, a soldier accepts a vile wager with the devil: For seven years, he'll receive a bottomless supply of infernal gold, but in return he must wear a bearskin, never wash, never explain his actions to anyone, and never, ever pray. Should he do any of these things, his soul will be forfeit. Well! The fellow mantles himself in the skin of a freshly killed bear and sets off to enjoy his fortune. Before long, however, the skin begins to stink. "By the third year, he no longer looked like a bear, but like a monster. The rotting bearskin felt as heavy as iron. Children pelted him with stones. Men and women fled from him. It was only when he brought out his money that they let him come near." The Bearskinner, as he is called, eventually sinks into a misery so deep that he is on the point of throwing off the bearskin and forsaking his soul when a chance encounter brings a gleam of hope. He realizes that he can use the devil's coin to feed the poor -- and the poor will pray for him. This enthralling and ultimately redemptive tale for children ages 5-12 is movingly reinforced by Max Grafe's grimy, sepia-toned, almost shaggy illustrations. In the end, I'm happy to say, the Bearskinner manages to thwart Satan, marries the pretty girl (there's always a pretty girl) and goes on to live a blameless life of charity. As well he should.
A Starred Review for The Bearskinner from Horn Book
November/December 2007
In a somber tale of the devil more outlasted than outwitted, an exsoldier accepts a hard bargain: he'll be rich for the rest of his life if, for seven years, he wears the skin of the bear he's just slain, without bathing, prayer, or explanation; but failure will mean eternal perdition. Schlitz narrates with clarity, grace, and sensitivity to the larger ideas her words suggest ("He had run away to war when he was a boy. Now that the war was over, he had nowhere to go. His childhood home was ashes, and all he loved were dead"). A few minor alterations actually strengthen the story: the soldier eventually lessens his misery in the increasingly noxious skin by using his wealth to help the needy; in turn, they pray for him. Also, the faithful woman he weds in the end is the middle sister, and her unkind siblings are spared the wretched end the Grimms allotted them. Except for the devil's coat of darkest green, Grafe's atmospheric fullpage illustrations are almost monochromatic, entirely composed of deep grays and browns barely mitigated by an occasional wash of blue, gleam of gold, or sunset hue. A provocative edition that should set older children thinking about the meaning of endurance and heroism.
Copyright Horn Book, Incorporated Nov/Dec 2007
contact: hjacobs@parkschool.net
