Best Selling Books by Laura Amy Schlitz

Winner of the 2016 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction A 2016 Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Award Winner Winner of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her delicious wit and keen eye to early twentieth-century America in a moving yet comedic tour de force. 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. Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz relates 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!), taking readers on an exploration of feminism and housework; religion and literature; love and loyalty; cats, hats, and bunions.

"Intricately detailed and nuanced characters, relatable domestic scenes with emotional heft, and evocative writing make for an enchanting, gratifying read." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) 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.

Told in multiple voices, after a binding curse is put on the ghost of a young, privileged girl killed by lightning, she comes to the aid of an enslaved boy in Ancient Greece as she leads him to freedom.

Princess Cora is bored with her routines of life, so she asks her fairy godmother to help.

Creepy, fabulous storytelling in the gothic genre. The writing is sublime, and the characters are worthy of Dickens: Oliver Twist meets Susannah Clarke

From 2008 Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz comes an exhilarating adventure — and a thoroughly original fairy who is a true force of nature. What would happen to a fairy if she lost her wings and could no longer fly? Flory, a young night fairy no taller than an acorn and still becoming accustomed to her wings — wings as beautiful as those of a luna moth — is about to find out. What she discovers is that the world is very big and very dangerous. But Flory is fierce and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. If that means telling others what to do — like Skuggle, a squirrel ruled by his stomach — so be it. Not every creature, however, is as willing to bend to Flory’s demands. Newbery Medal winner Laura Amy Schlitz and world-renowned illustrator and miniaturist Angela Barrett venture into the realm of the illustrated classic — a classic entirely and exquisitely of their making, and a magnificent adventure.

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.

At the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans, eleven-year-old Maud is adopted by three spinster sisters moonlighting as mediums who take her home and reveal to her the role she will play in their seances.

Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her sorcery to a Victorian gothic thriller — an enthralling, darkly comic tale that would do Dickens proud. 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. Newbery Medal winner Laura Amy Schlitz’s Victorian gothic is a rich banquet of dark comedy, scorching magic, and the brilliant and bewitching storytelling that is her trademark.

"Anyone with an interest in archaeology or in liars and braggarts will be drawn in by this slim biography of the hyper-imaginative Schliemann." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review) From Newbery Medal-winning author Laura Amy Schlitz comes an engaging illustrated biography of Heinrich Schliemann, a nineteenth-century archaeologist who most believe did find the ancient city 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 man with a funny habit of taking liberties with the truth. Laura Amy Schlitz and Robert Byrd open a 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.

"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."--

Da quando ha assistito allo spettacolo del Maestro Burattinaio Grisini, Clara non ha smesso di pensare ai due giovani aiutanti, un ragazzo e una ragazza più o meno della sua età. Per il suo dodicesimo compleanno, pochi giorni dopo, ottiene in regalo che lo spettacolo si svolga da lei. Clara non sa che quell''incontro sarà decisivo per i loro destini che, come i fili delle marionette, si intrecceranno pericolosamente con le trame di una misteriosa strega e dell''ambiguo Grisini intorno a una pietra dal potere malefico... Titolo originale: ''''Splendors and Glooms'''' (2012).

Come the Spring

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.