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

Gr 48Schlitz helps students step directly into the shoesand livesof medieval children in this outstanding collection of interrelated monologues. Designed for performance and excellent for use in interdisciplinary history classrooms, the book offers students an incredibly approachable format for learning about the Middle Ages that makes the period both realistic and relevant. The text, varying from dramatic to poetic, depending on the point of view, is accompanied by historical notes that shed light on societal roles, religion, and town life. Byrd's illustrations evoke the era and give dramatists ideas for appropriate costuming and props. Browsers interested in medieval life will gravitate toward this title, while history buffs will be thrilled by the chance to make history come alive through their own voices."Alana Abbott, James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT" Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Schlitz ("The Hero Schliemann") wrote these 22 brief monologues to be performed by students at the school where she is a librarian; here, bolstered by lively asides and unobtrusive notes, and illuminated by Byrd's ("Leonard, Beautiful Dreamer) "stunningly atmospheric watercolors, they bring to life a prototypical English village in 1255. Adopting both prose and verse, the speakers, all young, range from the half-wit to the lord's daughter, who explains her privileged status as the will of God. The doctor's son shows off his skills (Ordinary sores/ Will heal with comfrey, or the white of an egg, / An eel skin takes the cramping from a leg); a runaway villein (whose life belongs to the lord of his manor) hopes for freedom after a year and a day in the village, if only he can calculate the passage of time; an eel-catcher describes her rough infancy: her starving poor [father] took me up to drown in a bucket of water. (He relents at the sight of her wee fingers grasping at the sides of the bucket.) Byrd, basing his work on a 13th-century German manuscript, supplies the first page of each speaker's text with a tone-on-tone patterned border overset with a square miniature. Larger watercolors, some with more intricate borders, accompany explanatory text for added verve. The artist does not channel a medieval style; rather, he mutes his palette and angles some lines to hint at the period, but his use of cross-hatching and his mostly realistic renderings specifically welcome a contemporary readership. Ages 10-up. "(Aug.)" Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

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)