Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz; Robert Byrd (Illustrator)Call Number: Fic P314h
ISBN: 9780763615789
Publication Date: 2007
A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor, plus background information about medieval times.
Maidens, monks, and millers' sons-- in these pages, readers will meet them all. There's Hugo, the lord's nephew, forced to prove his manhood by hunting a wild boar; sharp-tongued Nelly, who supports her family by selling live eels; and the peasant's daughter, Mogg, who gets a clever lesson in how to save a cow from a greedy landlord. There's also mud-slinging Barbary (and her noble victim); Jack, the compassionate half-wit; Alice, the singing shepherdess; and many more. With a deep appreciation for the period and a grand affection for both characters and audience, Laura Amy Schlitz creates twenty-two riveting portraits and linguistic gems equally suited to silent reading or performance. Illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings by Robert Byrd-- inspired by the Munich-Nuremberg manuscript, an illuminated poem from thirteenth-century Germany-- this witty, historically accurate, and utterly human collection forms an exquisite bridge to the people and places of medieval England.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by 
Elijah of Buxton by
In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.
"Master storyteller Christopher Paul Curtis lends his trademark humor and vibrant narrative style to the gripping tale of eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman. The first child born into freedom in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit, Elijah is best known in his hometown as the boy who threw up on Frederick Douglass. (Not on purpose, of course -- he was just a baby then!) But things change when a former slave calling himself the Right Reverend Zephariah W. Connerly the Third steals money from Elijah's friend Mr. Leroy, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the south. Elijah joins Mr. Leroy on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the disreputable preacher, and he discovers firsthand the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled -- a life from which he'll always be free, if he can find the courage to go back home. Exciting, yet evocative, heart-wrenching, yet hilarious, Elijah of Buxton is Christopher Paul Curtis at his very best -- and it's an unforgettable testament to the power of hope."--Publisher's description.
The Wednesday Wars by
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.
Feathers by
When a new, white student nicknamed "The Jesus Boy" joins her sixth grade class in the winter of 1971, Frannie's growing friendship with him makes her start to see some things in a new light.