author: Laura Amy Schlitz
illustrator: Julia Iredale

Welcome to ancient Greece as only Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz can conjure it. An enslaved Thracian in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay. 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, but risk her life first for a season to serve Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Bound by destiny, by the time Melisto and Rhaskos meet, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. In the voices of gods and goddesses, enslaved people and slave owners, mothers and philosophers, the story of Rhaskos and Melisto is a gorgeous tour de force. Blending verse, prose, and illustrated archaeological “artifacts,” this is a tale that vividly transcends time, an indelible reminder of the power of language to illuminate human history.