
Laura Amy Schlitz is an American author of children's literature. She is a librarian and storyteller at The Park School in Brooklandville, Maryland. She received the 2008 Newbery Medal for her children's book entitled Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,[1] and the 2013 Newbery Honor for her children's book, Splendors and Glooms.[2] She also won the 2016 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, the 2016 National Jewish Book Award, and the Sydney Taylor Book Award for her young adult book, The Hired Girl. Her other published books are The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug For Troy (2006), A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama (2006), which won a Cybils Award that year, The Bearskinner: A Tale of the Brothers Grimm (2007), The Night Fairy (2010). Schlitz attended Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, and graduated in 1977.
A Newbery Medalist and a Caldecott Medalist join forces to give an overscheduled princess a day off -- and a deliciously wicked crocodile a day on.Princess Cora is sick of boring lessons. She's sick of running in circles around the dungeon gym. She's sick, sick, sick of taking three baths a day. And her parents won't let her have a dog. But when she writes to her fairy godmother for help, she doesn't expect that help to come in the form of a crocodile--a crocodile who does not behave properly. With perfectly paced dry comedy, children's book luminaries Laura Amy Schlitz and Brian Floca send Princess Cora on a delightful outdoor adventure -- climbing trees! getting dirty! having fun! -- while her alter ego wreaks utter havoc inside the castle, obliging one pair of royal helicopter parents to reconsider their ways.
Today Miss Chandler gave me this beautiful book. I vow that I will never forget her kindness to me, and I will use this book as she told me to—that I will write in it with truth and refinement…But who could be refined living at Steeple Farm?Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty, or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself—because maybe, just maybe, a hired girl cleaning and cooking for six dollars a week can become what a farm girl could only dream of—a woman with a future. Inspired by her grandmother’s journal, Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her sharp wit and keen eye to early twentieth-century America in a comedic tour de force destined to become a modern classic. Joan’s journey from the muck of the chicken coop to the comforts of a society household in Baltimore (Electricity! Carpet sweepers! Sending out the laundry!) takes its reader on an exploration of feminism and housework, religion and literature, love and loyalty, cats, hats, bunions, and burns.
The master puppeteer, Gaspare Grisini, is so expert at manipulating his stringed puppets that they appear alive. Clara Wintermute, the only child of a wealthy doctor, is spellbound by Grisini’s act and invites him to entertain at her birthday party. Seeing his chance to make a fortune, Grisini accepts and makes a splendidly gaudy entrance with caravan, puppets, and his two orphaned assistants.Lizzie Rose and Parsefall are dazzled by the Wintermute home. Clara seems to have everything they lack — adoring parents, warmth, and plenty to eat. In fact, Clara’s life is shadowed by grief, guilt, and secrets. When Clara vanishes that night, suspicion of kidnapping falls upon the puppeteer and, by association, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall. As they seek to puzzle out Clara’s whereabouts, Lizzie and Parse uncover Grisini’s criminal past and wake up to his evil intentions. Fleeing London, they find themselves caught in a trap set by Grisini’s ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it’s too late.
Step back to medieval 1255 England and meet 22 villagers, illustrated in pen and ink, inspired by the Munich-Nuremberg manuscript, an illuminated poem from thirteenth-century Germany. Hugo, the lord’s nephew, proves his manhood by hunting a wild boar. Sharp-tongued Nelly supports her family by selling live eels. Peasant Mogg gets a clever lesson in how to save a cow from a greedy landlord. Barbary slings mud on noble Jack. Alice is the singing shepherdess. And many more . . . .
Maud Flynn is known at the orphanage for her impertinence, so when the charming Miss Hyacinth and her sister choose Maud to take home with them, the girl is as baffled as anyone. It seems the sisters need Maud to help stage elaborate séances for bereaved, wealthy patrons. As Maud is drawn deeper into the deception, playing her role as a "secret child," she is torn between her need to please and her growing conscience – until a shocking betrayal makes clear just how heartless her so-called guardians are. Filled with tantalizing details of turn-of-the-century spiritualism and page-turning suspense, this lively historical novel features a winning heroine whom readers will not soon forget.
What would happen to a new night fairy whose wings were accidentally chewed off by a sleepy hungry new bat? Flory, acorn-size, with a single small sting spell, finds the world very big and dangerous. Depicted in the lush back garden of an old giantess, garbed in delicate softly tinted petal gowns, she fiercely practices her sting, swings a thorn dagger, bribes always hungry squirrel Skuggle, and seeks to ride an iridescent hummingbird - to transform her nature into a day fairy instead.
The Newbery Medal–winning author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! gives readers a virtuoso performance in verse in this profoundly original epic pitched just right for fans of poetry, history, mythology, and fantasy.Welcome to ancient Greece as only genius storyteller Laura Amy Schlitz can conjure it. In a warlike land of wind and sunlight, “ringed by a restless sea,” live Rhaskos and Melisto, spiritual twins with little in common beyond the violent and mysterious forces that dictate their lives. A Thracian slave in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay, a stable boy worth less than a donkey, much less a horse. Wrenched from his mother at a tender age, he nurtures in secret, aided by Socrates, his passions for art and philosophy. Melisto is a spoiled aristocrat, a girl as precious as amber but willful and wild. She’ll marry and be tamed—the curse of all highborn girls—but risk her life for a season first to serve Artemis, goddess of the hunt.Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos—Amber and Clay—never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. It takes an army of snarky gods and fearsome goddesses, slaves and masters, mothers and philosophers to help shape their story into a gorgeously distilled, symphonic tour de force.Blending verse, prose, and illustrated archaeological “artifacts,” this is a tale that vividly transcends time, an indelible reminder of the power of language to illuminate the over- and underworlds of human history.
This captivating coming-of-age story is touching, funny, and beautifully layered, with a fairy-tale ending that only Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz could deliver.On a gloomy November night, eleven-year-old Tiphany Stokes saves an old lady from collapsing in the street. An antique doll named Gretel watches them, longing for Tiph to rescue her from life in a shop window. Though none of these three characters realizes it, their worlds are about to change: Gretel will no longer be a precious prisoner. The old lady—is she a witch?—will discover the secret hidden in her long-neglected dollhouse. And Tiph—whose parents rejoice that she is “never any trouble”—will become a thief, a dog walker, an actor, and best of all, a friend.
Archaeologist? Mythmaker? Crook? This engaging, illustrated biography of Heinrich Schliemann — a nineteenth-century romantic who most believe did find the ancient city of Troy — reveals him to be a fascinating mixture of all three.From the time Heinrich Schliemann was a boy — or so he said — he knew he was destined to dig for lost cities and find buried treasure. And if Schliemann had his way, history books would honor him to this day as one of the greatest archaeologists who ever lived. But a little digging into the life of Schliemann himself reveals that this nineteenth-century self-made man had a funny habit of taking liberties with the truth. Like the famous character of his hero, the poet Homer, Schliemann was a crafty fellow and an inventor of stories, a traveler who had been shipwrecked and stranded and somehow survived. And Heinrich Schliemann was determined to become a legend like Homer — but in his own time. Following this larger-than-life character from his poor childhood in Germany to his achievement of wealth as a merchant in Russia, from his first haphazard dig for the city of Ilium to his final years living in a pseudo "Palace of Troy," this engrossing tale paints a portrait of contradictions — a man at once stingy and lavishly generous, a scholar both shrewd and reckless, a speaker of twenty-two languages and a health fanatic addicted to cold sea baths. Laura Amy Schlitz weaves historical facts among Schliemann’s fanciful recollections, while Robert Byrd’s illustrations evoke his life and times in wonderful detail. Along the way, The Hero Schliemann gives young readers food for discussion about how history sometimes comes to be written — and how it sometimes needs to be changed.Back matter includes source notes and a bibliography.
Master puppeteer Grisini is so expert at manipulating his string-puppets that they seem alive. Spellbound by his act, Clara Wintermute, the only child of a wealthy doctor, invites the puppeteer to entertain at her birthday party. Seeing his chance to make a fortune, Grisini accepts. With caravan, puppets, and two orphaned assistants, Grisini makes his gaudy entrance. To Lizzie Rose and Parsefall, Clara seems to have everything they lack: adoring parents, warmth, and plenty to eat. In fact, Clara's life is shadowed by grief, guilt, and secrets. When Clara vanishes that night, suspicion of kidnapping falls upon the puppeteer and, by association, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall. As they seek to puzzle out Clara's whereabouts, Lizze and Parse uncover Grisini's criminal past and wake up to his evil intentions. Fleeing London, they find themselves caught in a trap set by Grisini's ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it's too late.
Use Novel-Ties ® study guides as your total guided reading program. Reproducible pages in chapter-by-chapter format provide you with the right questions to ask, the important issues to discuss, and the organizational aids that help students get the most out of each book they read.
The sampler includes chapters from three of Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz’s celebrated A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, Splendors & Glooms, and The Hired Girl.A Drowned Maiden’s HairA feisty orphan is taken in by a band of phony spiritualists in this intriguing, engaging novel.Splendors & GloomsLaura Amy Schlitz brings her sorcery to a Victorian gothic thriller — an enthralling, darkly comic tale that would do Dickens proud.The Hired GirlLaura Amy Schlitz brings her delicious wit and keen eye to early twentieth-century America in a moving yet comedic tour de force.
by Laura Amy Schlitz
This book is a historical fantasy novel by the contemporary American writer Laura Amy Schlitz. The background of the story is London in the Vitoria era in the nineteenth Century. On the 12-year-old birthday of doctor Mutter's daughter Clara, the puppet show master Glee Sidney is invited to make performance. His two apprentices are orphans, who admire Clara's family very much. In fact, Clara buries in her heart unknown sadness, guilt and secret. That night, Clara is missing. The suspect target points to the puppet master and the two apprentices. At this moment, misty mysteries are in London... With extraordinary imagination, this gothic black comedy creates a charming and stunning world of magic, which adds radiance and beauty to each other with the vivid description of reality. It is a influential work which can be compared with Charles Dickens' works.
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Traditional Chinese editions of three 2014 Newbery Honor Paperboy by Vince Vince Vawter, The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes and One Came Home by amy timberlake. All about the courage of taking a leap of faith.
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Cybils Award-winning author Laura Amy Schlitz crafts a masterful interpretation of one of the Grimm Brothers' most engrossing fairy tales. A cold and hungry soldier is returning from war. He has no money, so he makes a pact with the devil. If he can wear a bearskin for seven years, he will always have plenty of gold. But if he tells anyone of the pact, he will lose his soul.
by Laura Amy Schlitz
BY Schlitz, Laura Amy ( Author ) [{ The Night Fairy By Schlitz, Laura Amy ( Author ) Sep - 13- 2011 ( Paperback ) } ]
by Laura Amy Schlitz