Laura Amy Schlitz is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village; the
Newbery Honor Book and New York Times bestseller Splendors &
Glooms; The Hired Girl, recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for
Historical Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award; and several
other books for young readers. A teacher as well as a writer, Laura
Amy Schlitz lives in Maryland.
Julia Iredale is an artist who works as a freelance
illustrator for clients around the world. Her work is informed by
her love of mythology, dark fantasy, and human psychology, weaving
these together to create beautiful, mysterious characters and
worlds. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Schlitz (“The Hired Girl”) is a Newbery Medal winner, and hops from
one style to another with tremendous skill. The story is told
partly in verse and partly in prose; the voice alternates between
first person and third person, with the gods — Hermes in particular
— stepping in as occasional choruses to the action. The text is
complemented by Julia Iredale’s delightful illustrations of
imaginary archaeological finds: an ostracon (or pottery shard), a
strigil (or scraper used to clean the body after exercise), some
painted vases. They’re accompanied by museum exhibit cards, to give
the reader information about what they depict.
—The New York Times Book Review
An artistic enslaved boy, “common as clay,” and a free-spirited
girl, “precious as amber,” become “linked together by the gods” in
this drama of ancient Greece. . . Lyrically descriptive,
surprisingly contemporary in feel, and laced with allusions to
Greek mythology, history, and epic stories, the narrative offers a
realistically diverse, colorful portrait of an ancient Greece in
which slavery and warfare were prevalent. Black-and-white
illustrations of archaeological artifacts add insight and depth to
this meticulously researched story. A rich, complex, deftly crafted
tale of friendship, creativity, and being true to oneself.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Curation, historical fiction, performance piece—Schlitz brings a
bundle of learning, artifice, and intentionality to this highly
stylized tale of ancient Greece. . .Schlitz deploys many voices;
Hermes, Rhaskos, Hephaistos, Artemis, Sokrates, and more have their
declamations, strophes, and antistrophes, characteristic of a Greek
chorus and fitting for oral performance. . . Ambitious and
original, this is stuffed with food for thought, often sparkling
with wit and appropriate strangeness.
—The Horn Book (starred review)
In a lyrical verse novel packed with ancient myths and well-defined
characters, Schlitz (The Hired Girl) takes readers to ancient
Greece to tell the saga of two children, virtual strangers, who
form a bond extending beyond life. . .the book is as meticulously
researched as Schlitz’s previous novels, as evidenced in detailed
descriptions of settings and lifestyles. Her exploration of the
human condition (“Nobody ever gets out of anything”) delves into
both characters’ psyches through a pensive, contemporary-feeling
narrative that easily propels readers along.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Schlitz anchors this astonishing work of historical fiction in
Greek tradition: ancient gods and philosophers narrate (Sokrates
appears throughout); she makes use of epic verse and literary
devices from Greek plays (described in the extensive backmatter);
references to Homer are threaded through the text. She offers
context for modern readers, elaborating on ancient Greece as a
slave society, while Iredale's black-and-white illustrations give
glimpses of artifacts. Like its two central figures, this luminous
creation is far more than the sum of its parts.
—Booklist (starred review)
Laura Amy Schlitz’s Newbery Medal-winning novel, Good Masters!
Sweet Ladies!, immersed readers in the sights, sounds and smells of
medieval life, warts and all. Her masterfully constructed Amber &
Clay transports young readers to ancient Greece, a place with
serious inequality and injustice where young people could become
part of history and where ghosts and gods walk the mortal
world...Readers of all ages will come away from Amber & Clay with a
richer understanding of ancient Greece’s social structures,
including its reliance on slavery and its cultural productions and
beliefs. This splendid novel could easily join a curriculum on
ancient Greece, helping to humanize the people and events of the
past and inspiring readers to learn even more about this
fascinating period in history.
—BookPage (starred review)
This is an ambitious but tightly plotted tale, with narration spun
in ancient Greek poetic and dramatic forms and familiar
contemporary prose. . .YA readers who fondly recall bygone days
curled up with Rick Riordan novels will be a prime audience for
Schlitz’s opus, particularly if they’re up for a literary
challenge.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Two children from vastly different backgrounds—one common as clay,
artistic and bright; the other precious as amber, wild, and
forceful—share stories of hardship and hope, life and death in this
historical fantasy told as a Greek tragedy. . . . Told from
multiple perspectives, mostly in verse with some prose sections,
Schlitz’s latest novel is a beautifully crafted, complex
masterpiece. . . a thoroughly researched, epic tale.
—School Library Journal
Melisto, "electric as amber," and Rhaskos, "indestructible as
clay," are as surprising a pairing as any in literature, ancient or
modern, and their story is both epic in nature and scrupulous in
detail. Amber & Clay is a true marvel.
—Shelf Awareness
This book tells a story of two young children growing up in ancient
Greece, Rhaskos and Melisto, whose lives are unexpectedly bound
together. . . . Schlitz has done meticulous research to create this
story as a work of historical fiction interwoven with Greek
mythology and told in the traditional epic style. Throughout the
text are pictures of pottery with notes that enrich the story with
background notes.
—School Library Connection
[T]he Newbery medalist Laura Amy Schlitz spins a tale of classical
Greece with as many layers as an archaeological dig. Delving into
this extraordinary book, children ages 8 to 16 will come across
potsherds, votive offerings and terra-cotta toys. They’ll hear from
gods, citizens, slaves and philosophers. They’ll encounter prose
and poetry and passages shaped by the conventions of Greek drama.
And through these unearthed riches of antiquity, given freshness
and even modernity by a virtuosic writer, readers will enter the
vanished worlds of two children.
—The Wall Street Journal
Two powerless kids in ancient Greece — the daughter of an
aristocrat and the son of a slave — transcend their circumstances
in this masterful blend of history and mythology.
—PEOPLE Magazine
Take a journey through history and time and meet gods, goddesses,
philosophers and more in this sweeping story.
—Girls' Life, Summer Reading roundup
The fates of a wealthy Athenian girl named Melisto and Thracian
slave boy named Rhaskos are inextricably linked in this brilliant
breathtakingly beautiful, meticulously researched narrative of 5th
century B.C.E Greece. Laura Amy Schlitz, a master of historical
fiction, weaves her marvelous tale in free verse, using the
crotchety voices of the gods and the voices of Sokrates, of
Melisto, of Rhaskos and more.
—The Buffalo News
Laura Amy Schlitz’s epic story of ill-fated friends, bound by a
magical connection, is elegant, thought-provoking and deeply
moving. . . . Emotionally intense and layered, the story unfolds
through more than 500 pages, making it a challenging but rewarding
read for young people who are ready to immerse themselves in a very
foreign world.
—The Virginian Pilot
The story weaves effortlessly around Greek history, communicated
through art, the form of the narratives, the interludes, characters
such as the famous philosopher Sokrates, and the fascinating
details of ancient Greek life. The result is a rare, precious work
of historical fiction that educates as much as it entertains.
Highly recommended.
—Historical Novel Society
Laura Amy Schlitz has done it again—this time immersing readers in
the ancient and mythological Greek world. Richly textured, Amber
and Clay intersperses poetry, prose, and artifacts to powerful
effect. This is a narrative worthy of the gods!
—Carole Boston Weatherford, author of Box: Henry Brown Mails
Himself to Freedom, a Newbery Award Honor Book
Volcanic in power, virtuosic in form, peerless in nuanced
execution, Amber and Clay is compulsively readable. I was in thrall
to its lyric and threnody at breakfast and at lunch and going up
the stairs. The muse chose right in inspiring Laura Amy Schlitz to
give us this haunting tale of duty, liberty, art, and
friendship.
—Gregory Maguire, New York Times best-selling author of Wicked
It’s so great to read this. Schlitz is such a bold and intelligent
writer. It’s a beautifully written tale.
—David Almond, Hans Christian Andersen Award–winning author of The
Tightrope Walkers
Reading Amber and Clay is like passing through a river into a
country that you thought you knew, only to learn that it is both
familiar and deeply strange, beautiful and very unsettling. You
will find a thrilling archaeological mystery, uncovered piece by
broken piece. And you will find two difficult children, struggling
to find their place in the world, who grow in the most
unpredictable ways. Amber and Clay is a masterpiece. Pass through
the river, but know this: you can never pass back through the same
river. Because even if the river were somehow the same, you won’t
be.
—Adam Gidwitz, author of The Inquisitor’s Tale, a Newbery Honor
Book
An original, intriguing, and beautifully worked-out story that
brings the ancient past most vividly to life. Top marks for great
illustrations, too.
—Adèle Geras, author of Troy, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor
winner
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes Laura Amy
Schlitz, like a lightning bolt from Mount Olympus, to deliver a
book that is a nearly perfect nesting doll of brilliantly imagined
narratives. With the help of none other than Sokrates himself,
Amber and Clay transports the reader to fifth century bce Athens to
confront complex questions about how we mortals manufacture shadowy
Truths from our incomplete knowledge and flawed perceptions. But
the simple spark holding this epic historical adventure together is
the unconquerable certainty and resilience of love. It is a love
‘as precious as amber and as common as clay.’ I am in love with
this lyrical novel, its snarky Greek gods, haunting ghosts,
archaeological artifacts, and vivid world-building. I swear to the
gods, when I was finally able to put this book down, it continued
to hum and crackle with electricity.
—Allan Wolf, author of The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep
Ask a Question About this Product More... |