The Hired Girl

Laura Amy Schlitz

Sep 2015 · Candlewick Press

About this ebook

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

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.