The Hired Girl

Laura Amy Schlitz

Sep 2015 · Candlewick Press

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

An interesting perspective from the point of view of an intelligent young girl from an era where educating women was unnecessary and a waste of time. Fortunately for Joan, she found a Jewish family that helped her, nourished her, and made allowances for her country ways. This book had an honesty about it that made it a compelling read. Good characterization; philosophical but down to earth; complicated relationships that play off one another well; and nice use of tension and humor.

A hart warming story adout a girl that ran away from her home. She went to Baltimore a man took her to his family and she became a hired girl. She is Catholic and she works for a Jewish family. But she falls in love with one of the masters son.

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About the author

Laura Amy Schlitz is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, the Newbery Honor Book and New York Times bestseller Splendors & Glooms,</i> and several other books for young readers. A teacher as well as a writer, Laura Amy Schlitz lives in Maryland.