When Laura Amy Schlitz was a librarian she was faced with the task of finding a medieval script with 17 parts of equal length. When none could be found she decided to create her own collection of monologues and two dialogues. In this book we learn of the daily lives of children from all different classes and stations in medieval life. Meet the miller's son who learns to cheat customers. Hugo, the lord's nephew who make his first kill while hunting for wild boar. There is Isobel, the lord's daughter who doesn't understand why she is hated. There is even an outcast, Constance, who is making a pilgrimage to Saint Winifred's well in hopes of a miracle.
It is true that the settings and some of the situations for Good masters is foreign to middle school readers (how often will they need to kill a boar to be considered a man?) the feelings of the characters are those of every child at any point in time. Readers, or performers in this case, can understand the pressures of living up to family expectations. Teens in the middle of adolescence know what it is like to feel unwanted or left out and to want to find a way, any way, to change that situation.
Good masters! Sweet ladies! would make a wonderful addition to any lesson on the medieval time period. Having the students perform the monologues and dialogues gets the students up and moving and striving to put them self in the place of another.
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