About this item
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.
About the Author
Laura Amy Schlitz is the author of the 2008 Newbery Medal-winning GOOD MASTERS! SWEET LADIES! VOICES FROM A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE, illustrated by Robert Byrd, and the 2013 Newbery Honor book SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS. She is also the author of A DROWNED MAIDEN'S HAIR: A MELODRAMA; THE NIGHT FAIRY; THE HERO SCHLIEMANN: THE DREAMER WHO DUG FOR TROY; and THE BEARSKINNER: A STORY OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, a retelling illustrated by Max Grafe. Her newest novel, THE HIRED GIRL, traces the story of a farm girl who escapes her hard scrabble life in 1911 rural Pennsylvania, and journeys from the muck of the chicken coop to the comforts of a society household in Baltimore (Electricity! Carpet sweepers! Sending out the laundry!) , taking readers on an exploration of feminism and housework; religion and literature; love and loyalty. Schlitz's latest book, PRINCESS CORA AND THE CROCODILE, is brilliantly illustrated by Brian Floca. This beginning chapter book describes the life of an over-conscientious princess and her uninhibited reptile alter-ego. Schlitz lives in Baltimore, where she is a lower school librarian at the Park School.
