Laura Amy Schlitz
Lower School Librarian, Grades 3-5Laura is the Lower School Librarian for grades three through five. She is a gifted storyteller, drawing on her collection of hundreds of folk tales, fairy tales, and a variety of stories from around the world and across all cultures.
Storytelling is just one part of her work in the library: As the quintessential children’s librarian, she reads aloud, helps her patrons find books, and teaches library skills.
Laura is a nationally recognized children’s author. In 2008, she won the Newbery Medal for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, a series of monologues she wrote for fifth grade classes at Park. A novel, Splendors and Glooms, was a 2013 Newbery Honor winner. The Hired Girl, published in 2015, won a Gold Medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Teen category, a National Jewish Book Award for Young Adult Literature, and a Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Amber and Clay earned five starred reviews and was named to several lists of best books for children and middle grades, including Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Horn Book, and Booklist. It was given an Honor in the annual Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children, National Council of Teachers of English.
All of Laura’s books, including Princess Cora and the Crocodile (2018), The Night Fairy (2010), Bearskinner: A Tale of the Brothers Grimm (2007), A Drowned Maiden’s Hair (2006), and The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy (2006) are highly acclaimed by critics and readers alike. While writing, she regularly solicits feedback from the children in her classes.
“My books have been inspired by the curiosity, creative thinking, imagination and basic goodness of my Park School children.”
Before coming to Park, Laura worked as a librarian for the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Baltimore County Public Library. She has worked as an actress, playwright, costumer, and temporary secretary.
Laura holds a B.A. degree in Aesthetics and an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Goucher College.
All of Laura’s books were published by Candlewick Press:
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Newbery Medal Winner for 2008
The Hero Schliemann
A Drowned Maiden’s Hair
Bearskinner
The Night Fairy
Splendors and Glooms: Newbery Honor Award Winner for 2013
The Hired Girl: 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
Princess Cora and the Crocodile
Amber & Clay: Awarded an Honor book in the annual Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children, National Council of Teachers of English.
Back to Faculty & Staff Directory
