September

September

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Huzzah! for "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!"

I have always been fascinated by Medieval and Renaissance history and this CHILDREN'S book was a great insight into what life would have been like in Medieval England. The author, Laura Amy Schlitz, wrote the book in the form of a play for her school class to perform. All the parts are equal in important which makes it perfect for the Elementary age children it was written for. Each of the characters are interesting and there part in the village life is explained very well along with footnotes for word explanations and also separate pages of explanations about certain points of history or practices that are little known about in our modern day.

The illustrations are especially beautiful and it is fun to find each of the characters on the village map as you read about each of them. The different responsibilities and hardships they had to endure. You will come attached to the characters and I finished the book wishing there was a longer story for each of the characters. My two favorite characters were, Taggott, the blacksmith large daughter, and Alice, the shepherdess.

This would make a fun summer project for a group of children where you could study and learn more in depth about what it would have been like to live in this village, lice and all. Then even put on the play for family and friends. It may even get your children to appreciate that they live now and not back then in the 1200"s.

I highly recommend this book!

2 comments:

markandaubrey said...

That book sounds great! I have a lot of weaknesses, but one main weakness is children’s books.

Ellen said...

I read both of those! They were two of my favorites, too. (You loaned the book to Kim and Tammy, so I read some stories.) But, I'm not too crazy about Lowdy, the Varlet's Child, that's for sure!