Laura Amy Schlitz is a Newbery medal winner whose work for children is remarkably varied and engaging. In Amber and Clay, a historical novel with magical elements rooted in Greek beliefs, she imagines the story of the enslaved boy who appears in Plato’s dialogue Meno. His name is Rhaskos, and he is of mixed Thracian and Greek parentage; he shows promise as an artist and a philosopher, but his first-person narrative gives us a bleak picture of the wretchedness of slavery - mistreatment, constraint, and loss - and of its effect on the enslaved. Schlitz interweaves this story with the story of the Athenian girl Melisto, whose already limited life is made worse by her abusive mother; the fates of the two characters will prove to be linked. Rhaskos is also connected for the better with two other people, one fictional - an Athenian potter, himself a freedman -- and one historical: the philosopher Socrates. The book is written mostly in free verse, partly in prose, and is illustrated with images of fictional examples of ancient artefacts.  Schlitz’s thoughtful concluding notes give useful background on several historical issues that play a role in the text. – Deborah Roberts