Amber and Clay
Ratings4
Average rating3.8
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 archeological “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.
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The story takes entirely too long to get going. Despite this being a children's book, it does not read like one and is probably best suited to precocious readers with an interest in Ancient Greece (or adults who were once upon a time).
Amber and Clay is the story of two children who are very different and who have very different life experiences and yet who join together to try to accomplish a common goal. Amber is a wild girl, reckless, undisciplined, plain, the child of a rich man, a child unloved by her mother. Clay is a quiet boy, the son of an enslaved woman, thoughtful though untaught, clever though unschooled, interested in drawing horses. The story takes place in ancient Greece and the other characters include a philosopher, a bear, and some of the gods.
You can't help but be amazed at this book, with its beautiful structure of beginning chapters with an artifact of ancient Greece, found in the present day, an artifact that is closely tied to the plot. The characters are all vivid and completely unique, and the author bravely allows them to experience the full repercussions of their actions, some of which is heartbreaking. Author Laura Amy Schlitz uses timeless poetic forms to tell the story, and, again, that is an achievement that the reader can't help but admire. The lives of these two children are fascinating to watch as the story unfolds.
A brilliant book.
