Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From A Medieval Village

Schlitz, Laura Amy. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From A Medieval Village. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2007.

How do you get 8-12 year-olds to read about medieval history? Do what Laura Amy Schlitz did and write a book about all kinds of interesting people who lived in a medieval village during the Middle Ages. Be sure to make all the inhabitants the same age as the kids who will be reading the book; that way they will identify with the characters and want to keep reading. Include a well-rounded cast such as Drogo the tanner’s apprentice, Simon the knight’s son, Mogg the villein’s daughter(tell them they will have to read the book to find out what a villein is), Mariot and Maud the glassblower’s daughters, and Nelly the sniggler (again-if they want to know what a sniggler is they will have to read the book). Give them some lively poetry that vividly describes life in a medieval village.

"Fleas in the pottage bowl,

Fleas in the bread,

Bloodsucking fleas

In the blankets of our beds,"

Add all kinds of interesting and factual asides about life in the Middle Ages like; "Pottage is a sort of stew. Poor people just threw whatever they had into the pot and hoped for the best" and put them in the margins so they do not interrupt the flow of the combination poetry, prose, and free verse soliloquies of the characters. Oh, and don't forget to have enough characters so the whole class can perform it as a play if they want to. Be sure to get someone like Robert Byrd to add a two-page-spread aerial map of “A Medieval Manor England, 1255” and some colorful, realistic, yet middle ages-ish ink and watercolor illustrations that will add visually to each character’s story. Do all this and you should have a book that no kid will be able to put down. Who knows; you might even win the Newbery.