Librarians occasionally use the word “purposeful” to describe a book. This means, of course,
a book with a very specific purpose, such as use in the curriculum, or to teach a lesson. The unspoken meaning behind “purposeful” is often, lacking in literary merit, even as it achieves its purpose.
Yet here comes this year’s Newbery winner, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! a book written with a very specific purpose. Laura Amy Schlitz, a librarian at Baltimore’s Park School , wrote this book for a very specific class of students who were studying the Middle Ages. As the book achieves its purpose, to give each student a meaty role to play in their study of the time, it also meets the criteria of the Newbery Award, to be the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”
The book actually succeeds on three fronts - it brings the time alive for the reader, it has literary merit, and it actually has a child friendly focus that will make it a Newbery book that a wide variety of children can read (or listen to) and enjoy. For a book that looks so gentle and pastoral, Schlitz doesn’t skirt around the nitty -gritty of the time period, details to which kids often gravitate. From killing a boar and eating it’s fatty kidneys, to using urine to tan a hide, these monologues resonate with the sights and smells of the time period.
I’d love to hear the impressions of others, especially if you’ve shared it with child readers (or performers!)