Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village

Children's book written as monologues to be read or performed.

I want to see these monologues performed!

best childrens book i have read in along time.If your children like history they will love it.This years Newbery winner

The author of this delightful children's book, Laura Amy Schlitz, is a school librarian. She wrote this 2008 Newbery Award winner for a group of her students who were studying the Middle Ages. Her desire was to provide enough short plays so that each of the 17 children in each class could share equally in the performance and demonstration of this period of history. And, boy, do the Middle...more

The author of this delightful children's book, Laura Amy Schlitz, is a school librarian. She wrote this 2008 Newbery Award winner for a group of her students who were studying the Middle Ages. Her desire was to provide enough short plays so that each of the 17 children in each class could share equally in the performance and demonstration of this period of history. And, boy, do the Middle Ages come alive in these plays! Set in a medieval manor in England in 1255, these unforgettable and interconnected stories immediately and tightly grab hold of the reader's attention, and they won't let go until the last page! Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village contains 17 monologues and 2 dialogues, and each one cleverly relates the perspective of medieval children as they live out their lives (according to their social class) during the Middle Ages. We are proud of Hugo, the lord's nephew, as he masters a significant rite of passage by killing his first boar. We relate to Taggot (the blacksmith's daughter) as she worries about what most girls worry about- boys! We mourn with the plowboy as he poignantly remembers his dead father. And, Otho (the miller's son) poetically illustrates for the reader the lengths to which people went in order to survive... "For every man's a sinner, And he wants his neighbor's grain. The peasant moves the boundary stone And steals the lord's demesne (dim-MAIN) The miller steals the flour, And the baker steals the bread. We're hypocrites and liars- And we all get fed." Some of these strikingly dramatic portraits of medieval life are true stories! Alice, the shepherdess, restores to health a beloved sheep by singing to it all night. Nelly uses her strong, newborn fingers to grasp to the side of the bucket when her desperately poor and starving father tries to drown her. (The author includes references to the real accounts of these experiences.) Political dilemmas, such as class distinction and religious intolerance, are highlighted through the perspectives of these children. The monologues also beautifully illustrate the children's regret and dishonesty as they struggle to understand survival in their culture. Interspersed throughout the monologues and dialogues are short essays that explain traditions (like the medieval pilgrimage), ways of life (such as the three-field system), popular sports (like falconry), and other significant pieces of medieval life (such as the treatment of Jewish people). In one of these essays, the author points out with irony how the Crusades- a series of battles in which "Christians" were asked to free the Holy City (Palestine, now Israel) from all Islamic peoples- were an "unholy muddle of political motives, greed, savage brutality, and religious fervor." Yet the term "crusader" today is generally used to refer to people who are considered to be doing something noble. I would highly recommend Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! to older children (the author intended her characters to be between 10-15 years old), especially as they strive to understand more about real life in a medieval village. This book is bound to have a lasting effect on their understanding of life in the Middle Ages. It certainly did for me.   hide

I work with Laura, who is a fantastic storyteller and a wonderful human being. I'm thrilled she got this award.

This is a great book. It's the Newbery Award 2008. It is a collection of 20 Monologues for children. Each monologue is about a person during Medieval times. It was written by a teacher who wanted each of her students to have a main part in a performance... It has historical facts along the sides of the pages to explain things about medieval times. It's great!

This series of interrelated monologues definitely deserved to win the Newbery! These need to be read aloud and enjoyed.

Interconnected children's poetic monologues reflecting the harsh nature of daily life in a medieval village. Still, there are numerous instances of humor and joy. An amazing amount of historic details are interspersed in the storylines without being tedious. Highly recommend to children 10

This is a collection of 17 short plays for one or two people. The writing is as lively and honest as Chaucer but in mostly modern English, with footnotes for any terms that may be unfamiliar. Some of the characters are based on historical people. Between some of the plays are historical notes (about the Crusades, falconry, Jews in medieval times, and other things). I would recommend this to...more

This is a collection of 17 short plays for one or two people. The writing is as lively and honest as Chaucer but in mostly modern English, with footnotes for any terms that may be unfamiliar. Some of the characters are based on historical people. Between some of the plays are historical notes (about the Crusades, falconry, Jews in medieval times, and other things). I would recommend this to readers of any age.   hide