In the forward to her Newbery winning book Good Masters!
Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, Laura Amy Schlitz references
her student love for historical novels, and how the plights, struggles and
survivals of ordinary people inspired her.
Wanting to provide the same inspiration for her own students, she wrote Good
Masters!, a collection of prose and poetic monologues and dialogues
depicting children from a medieval manor in England in 1255.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! opens with the monologue
of Hugo, the lord’s nephew. In short
stanzas, Hugo speaks of finding a boar in the forest. This adventurous story perfectly sets up the
characters we as readers , listeners and performers are about to meet. Schlitz lays the groundwork for an
informative and entertaining look at a period of history. Schlitz includes timely vocabulary, such as
“friants,” (boar droppings) “villeins” (non-free peasant) and “varlet” (a man
who looked after animals), as well as incorporating religious customs and
holidays into her monologues and dialogues.
Schlitz provides explanations and definitions in footnotes, so as to not
interrupt the flow of language.
“Oh, God makes the water, and the water makes the river,/ And
the river turns the mill wheel/ and the wheel goes on forever.” These three lines are repeated often in the
tale of Otho, the miller’s son. Each
character brings with him or her a different style of writing, some verse and
some in prose. But Otho’s monologue is
the only to include repeated lines.
Otho’s narration bounces back and forth between an eight line stanza
with an ABCB rhyme scheme and the refrain which includes the lines quoted
above. The overall effect is not unlike
a nursery rhyme, though the subject matter is significantly more mature. Otho talks of being a miller, and cheating
his customers. “My father used to beat
me sore - / I’ve learned that life is grim./ And someday I will have a son –
and God help him!”
Throughout the unique voices presented here, readers,
listeners and performers can observe and relate to a variety of different
experiences and opinions. While the
effects of medieval politics and religions might not be immediately relevant to
their lives, many youth can relate to feelings of inadequacy, obligation,
jealousy and friendship. Schlitz touches
on very common feelings while exploring historical details.
In addition to informative footnotes, Schlitz also includes
stage directions (also presented as footnotes) and prose interludes to give the
reader more information about a certain historical topic, such as medieval
agriculture and the Crusades. This brief
but helpful instruction can only enhance a reader’s or performer’s experience.
For many students, history can be a dry subject with endless
names and dates that seem to have no relevance to their lives. The beauty of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!
is that it gives students an immediate connection to the past. This tactic could be employed to explore
different time periods. Students could
take time looking at the lives of children to enhance their understanding of
history. I think a valuable exercise
might be to have students choose a time period and allow them to create a
character from that period, and then write a scene for them, describing the
quotidian details of their lives in context.
Schlitz, Laura Amy. Good
Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780763615789
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