The Hired Girl

by Laura Amy Schlitz

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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Historical, Fiction, Middle Grade, Teen, Coming Of Age

480 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2015

About the author

Laura Amy Schlitz is an American author of children's literature. She is a librarian and storyteller at The Park School in Brooklandville, Maryland.

She received the 2008 Newbery Medal for her children's book entitled Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,[1] and the 2013 Newbery Honor for her children's book, Splendors and Glooms.[2] She also won the 2016 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, the 2016 National Jewish Book Award, and the Sydney Taylor Book Award for her young adult book, The Hired Girl. Her other published books are The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug For Troy (2006), A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama (2006), which won a Cybils Award that year, The Bearskinner: A Tale of the Brothers Grimm (2007), The Night Fairy (2010).

Schlitz attended Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, and graduated in 1977.

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had books, if I could scrape together an education, I'd have a future, whether any man ever asked me to marry him or not.

Maybe you've seen this book lurking around with its high ratings and positive reviews. Maybe you've even noticed that it got critical acclaim, a Kirkus star, and that the author is a Newbery Medal winner. And then maybe, like me, you glanced over it quickly, took in the story about a girl trying to get hired in 1911, and quickly went off to find some fast-paced fantasy to read.

I understand. The premise of this book may not sound that compelling. But it is. Through the author's fantastic, sympathetic portrayal of the narrator and her situation, The Hired Girl becomes a story that is charming, frustrating (in a good way) and moving.

Like some of the best books, this story comes to vivid, colourful life through the eyes of our narrator - Joan Skraggs. She is a truly wonderful character. She's naive, clumsy and prone to misfortune, and yet also spirited and ambitious. Sometimes I have the pleasure of reading about characters that truly feel real and Joan is one of those rare examples.

With a narrative voice that is both true to the time and evidently feeling constrained by it, we are taken on a journey with Joan, through themes of feminism, religion and love. In this book, she becomes our hero. We desperately want her to succeed.

Once upon a time, Joan had a loving mother who encouraged her to read, learn, and better herself. She told Joan she could be something more than a wife, that she would never have to rely on a man. But now Joan's mother is dead, her father has pulled her out of school to keep the house, and he has burned her beloved books. Joan is trapped and sad, but most of all, she's determined.

So Joan runs away to Baltimore where she finds work as a parlor maid. She has to somehow try to fit in with her new Jewish family, please the old maid, and not set anything on fire. Trickier than it sounds.

I love the dynamic between Joan, the Rosenbachs, and Malka. There are many sweet and funny moments, as well as an interesting exploration of their two different religions without ever becoming preachy. Most of all, I love the genuine growth and development of Joan's character. She changes with the novel in a way that feels realistic and natural.

A very charming historical tale.

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[Candi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Today Miss Chandler gave me this beautiful book. I vow that I will never forget her kindness to me, and I will use this book as she told me to – I will write in it with truth and refinement."

What a charming coming-of-age story! It is written as a series of diary entries by a precocious, fourteen-year-old girl named Joan. Life was never easy for the Skraggs family, earning their meager living on a farm in Pennsylvania. But for Joan, there is no end in sight to the tedious, back-breaking work after her mother’s death. Left at the mercy of her father and brothers, Joan is unloved and exploited. Bookworms will find a connection with this spunky young girl. While real life is full of drudgery, she adores her small collection of treasured books and looks towards the future - a future she imagines to be much like what she finds between those pages.

"My books promised me that life wasn’t just made up of workaday tasks and prosaic things. The world is bigger and more colorful and more important than that. Maybe not here at Steeple Farm, but somewhere. It has to be. It has to be."

A bold escape to Baltimore and a position as a hired girl in a wealthy, Jewish household is the crux of the plot. What ensues is often amusing, sometimes discouraging, but always heart-warming. Joan is an aspiring Catholic and much of the humor comes from her blunders surrounding the Jewish practices within the household. Without becoming preachy, I think the book does a great job in highlighting the differences in religion and the respect one should have for the faith of others. Joan is a romantic type, and much of what she expects regarding love comes from her cherished novels. This is almost always likely to land a poor girl in trouble! She gets herself mixed up in some situations that made me both cringe and laugh!

In any event, no matter what, you can’t help but cheer for Joan. With her bright mind and her hunger for knowledge, you’ll want something more for her beyond that of a hired girl. There’s a valuable message of feminism in this book. I think it would be a great choice for pre-teens or adolescents. I suspect many girls would recognize a little piece of themselves in the spirited and passionate Joan. I rarely read young adult fiction, but this is one that impressed me a great deal. I hope some of Joan’s dreams come true!

"When I behold the ocean, I know that the world isn’t just the grind of small tasks and small thoughts. The world is wide and wild and grand. Someday I will sail my little bark into the great ocean of life, braving the winds and the tide. And while the waves may dwarf me, they will not belittle me, because I will be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul."

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I think fans of Anne Shirley will really like this novel.

14-year old Joan is such a charming, optimistic, lovable narrator. All she wants is to learn and explore the world. When her father forbids her to even go to school and burns her books, she has no choice but to run away and find a place for herself elsewhere. Joan lands as a hired girl in a Jewish home where she soon becomes a meddling, overinvolved, but well-loved family member.

Among other things, I liked a lot how religions are portrayed in the novel. There is a certain amount of friction between Joan's Catholicism and Rosenbach's Judaism, but religious aspects of the story never become preachy or imposing.

Sweet, lovely, empowering adventure.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bildungsroman. Definition: “A novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education.” A certain strain of English major quivers at the very term. Get enough Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man shoved down your gullet and you’d be quivering too. I don’t run across such books very often since I specialize primarily in books for children between the ages of 0-12. For them, the term doesn’t really apply. After all, books for kids are often about the formation of the self as it applies to other people. Harry finds his Hogwarts and Wilbur his spider. Books for teenagers are far better suited to the Bildungsroman format since they explore that transition from child to adult. Yet when you sit right down and think about it, the transition from childhood to teenagerhood is just as fraught. There is a beauty to that age, but it’s enormously hard to write. Only a few authors have ever attempted it and come out winners on the other side. Laura Amy Schlitz is one of the few. Writing a book that could only be written by her, published by the only publisher who would take a chance at it (Candlewick), Schlitz’s latest is pure pleasure on the page. A book for the child that comes up to you and says, “I’ve read Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. What’s new that’s like that?”

The last straw was the burning of her books. Probably. Even if Joan’s father hadn’t set her favorite stories to blazes, it’s possible that she would have run away eventually. What we do know is that after breaking her back working for a father who wouldn’t even let her attend school or speak to her old teacher, 14-year-old Joan Skraggs has had enough. She has the money her mother gave her before she died, hidden away, and a dream in mind. Perhaps if she runs away to Baltimore she might be able to find work as a hired girl. It wouldn’t be too different from what she’s done at home (and it could be considerably less filthy). Bad luck turns to good when Joan’s inability to find a boarding house lands her instead in the household of the Rosenbach family. They're well-to-do Jewish members of the community and Joan has no experience with Jewish people. Nonetheless she is willing to learn, and learn she does! But when she takes her romantic nature a bit too far with the family, she’ll find her savior in the most unexpected of places.

I mentioned Anne of Green Gables in my opening paragraph, but I want to assure you that I don’t do so lightly. One does not bandy about Montgomery’s magnum opus. To explain precisely why I referenced it, however, I need to talk a little bit about a certain type of romantically inclined girl. She’s the kind that gets most of her knowledge of other people through books. She is by turns adorable and insufferable. Now, the insufferable part is easy to write. We are, by nature, inclined to dislike girls in their early teens that play a kind of mental dress-up that’s cute on kids and unnerving on adolescents. However, this character can be written and written well. Jo in Little Women comes through the age unscathed. Anne from Anne of Green Gables traipses awfully close to the awful side, but manages to charm the reader in the process (no mean feat). The “Girl” from the musical The Fantastiks would fit in this category as well. And finally, there is Joan in The Hired Girl. She vacillates wildly between successfully playing the part of a young woman and then going back to the younger side of adolescence. She pouts over not getting a kitten, for crying out loud. Adults reading this book will have a vastly different experience than kids and teens, then. To a grown-up (particularly a grown-up woman) Joan is almost painfully familiar. We remember the age of fourteen and what that felt like. That yearning for love and adventure. That yearning can be useful to you, but it can also make you bloody insufferable. As such, adults are going to be inclined to forgive Joan very easily. I can only hope that her personality allows younger readers to do the same.

My husband used to write and direct short historical films. They were labor intensive affairs where every car, house, and pot holder had to be accurate and of the period. It would have been vastly easier to just write and direct contemporary fare, but where’s the fun in that? I think of those days often when I read works of historical fiction. Labor intensive doesn’t even begin to explain what goes into an accurate look at history. Ms. Schlitz appears to be unaware of this, however, since not only has she written something set in the past, she throws the extra added difficulty of discussing religion into it as well. Working in a Jewish household at the turn of the century, Joan must come to grips with all kinds of concepts and ideas that she has hitherto been ignorant of. For this to work, the author tries something very tricky indeed. She makes certain that her heroine has grown up on a farm where her sole concept of Jewish people is from “Ivanhoe”, so that she is as innocent as a newborn babe. She isn’t refraining from anti-Semitism because she’s an apocryphal character. She’s just incapable of it due to her upbringing, and that’s a hard element to pull off. Had Ms. Schlitz pushed the early portion of this book any further, she would have possibly disinterested her potential readership right from the start. I have heard a reader say that the opening sequence with Joan’s family is too long, but I personally believe these sections where she wanders blindly in and out of various situations could not have worked if that section had been any shorter.

But as I say, historical fiction can be the devil to get right. Apocryphal elements have a way of seeping into the storyline. Your dialogue has to be believably from the time and yet not so stilted it turns off the reader. In this, Laura Amy Schlitz is master. This book feels very early 20th century. You wouldn’t blink an eye to learn it was fifty or one hundred years old (though its honest treatment of Jewish people is probably the giveaway that it’s contemporary). The language feels distinctive but it doesn’t push the young reader away. Indeed, you’re invited into Joan’s world right from the start. I also enjoyed very much her Catholicism. Characters that practice religion on a regular basis are so rare in contemporary books for kids these days.

As I mentioned, adults will read this book differently than the young readership for whom it is intended. I do think that if I were fourteen myself, this would be the kind of book I’d take to. By the same token, as an adult the theme that jumped out at me the most was that of motherhood. Joan’s mother died years before but she has a very palpable sense of her. Her memories are sharp and through her eyes we see the true tragedy of her mother’s life. How she wed a violent, hateful man because she felt she had no other choice. How she wasn’t cut out for the farm’s hard labor and essentially worked herself to death. How she saw her daughter’s future and found the means to save her (and by golly it works!). All the more reason to have your heart go out to Joan when she tries, time and again, to turn Mrs. Rosenbach into a substitute mother figure. It’s a role that Mrs. Rosenbach does NOT fit into in the least, but that doesn’t stop Joan from extended what is clearly teenaged rebellion onto a woman who isn’t her mother but her employer. Indeed, it’s Mrs. Rosenbach who later says, “I felt her wanting a mother.”

Is it a book for a certain kind of reader? Who am I to say? It’s a book I’d hand to a young me, so I don’t think I can necessarily judge who else would enjoy it. It’s beautiful and original and old and classic. It makes you feel good when you read it. It’s thick but it flies by. Because of the current state of publishing today books are either categorized as for children or for teens. The Hired Girl isn’t really for either. It’s for those kids poised between the two ages, desperate to be older but with bits of pieces of themselves stuck fast to their younger selves. A middle school novel of a time before there were middle schools. Beautifully written, wholly original, one-of-a-kind. Unlike anything you’ve read that’s been published in the last fifty years at least, and that is the highest kind of praise I can give.

For ages 12 and up.

[Tiz. T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

And here is what YA should bloody well look like.

This book has EVERYTHING:

- A compelling, funny, intelligent, resourceful but not perfect main character.who takes hold of her life with bravery and wit
- An interesting, well-research setting (both the Farm and Baltimore) in which the time's struggles are accurately portrayed
- An insight on important theme (religious persecution, what means to oppress and be oppressed)
- Complex and interesting secondary characters, among which an elderly woman. Malka shines. No really. She is my favourite
- The fact that no, Romance is NOT the most important thing in somebody life (STANDING OVATION)

All this in a delightfully written package. A book I would buy for friends and relatives. Heck, I likely will.

[Book Riot Community]

THIS BOOK. It had me crying at page one when its heroine, fourteen-year-old Joan, is telling her teacher goodbye. Joan loves school, and reading and learning, but her father insists she end her education and work the farm to help out her family. It's Pennsylvania in 1911, and her father demands everyone earn their keep. But when Joan gets a job as a maid outside the home, she allows herself to dream of a different life away from her family's farm. And with her big brain, Joan just might figure out how to get it. Inspired by the journal of author's grandmother, The Hired Girl is an inspiring, magical delight.


Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-...

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not put this book down! What a delight! All too often books that try for a naive narrator end up making the protagonist into a fool But not here. Our Joan is naive, but she's intelligent and eager to learn. I adored her, and everyone around her. And I loved the topic and the comparison to DANIEL DERONDA. Such a great book!

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a very L. M. Montgomery-ish feel to it. Joan gets into a lot of "scrapes" like Anne, but is an aspiring writer like Emily. And like Betsy Ray--using the name Lovelace is a nice touch (though Betsy would never have been so spoony about a boy). References to Jane Eyre, Cyrano, and other favorite literary characters, and the fact that the author is obviously a cat lover, made me love the book even more.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise fascinated me - Edwardian era in America! Servant main character! Coming of age story! Diary format! - plus the recommendation from A Mighty Girl. There were positives to this book, but some definite negatives, too.

Joan Scraggs, age 14, is the narrator, and quite frankly, she acts like it. 14 year olds are apparently the same across generations, which I found both amusing and irritating.

The beginning was riveting - a young farm girl, working incredibly hard to help support her farm family, who wants an education, but is constantly mistreated and belittled by her father, now that her mother is dead. Eventually, after her father burns her three prized books, Joan's had enough and runs away to Baltimore, taking on a new persona. She is hired, after some mishaps, by a wealthy Jewish family. This was where I started feeling a little uncomfortable, and there were two major issues that wrecked the story for me.

One reviewer (Beth) said it best, "She's a fourteen-year-old who really needs her job, after all, and she forgets that a little too easily and a little too often." I wasn't able to articulate this as clearly, but it really rang true. Things were different in 1911. Good jobs for women were difficult to come by, and Joan doesn't seem to realize that. (Side note on how all the ads for hired girls said "white woman" - interesting historical layer there.) I'll admit that her naivety plays a role in this, as her worldly experience has been entirely through classic romantic fiction (Jane Eyre & Ivanhoe). However, it got to a point for me where it was difficult to sympathize with her struggles, when she was clearly capable of making her own life easier, by acknowledging her true role in the household. She's a servant, and the family does treat her as one, albeit in an unusually kind and generous manner. However, she doesn't seem to remember that without this job, she'd be either sent back to the family farm, or on the streets. That lack of awareness really bothered me.

The other thing that made this difficult for me was the unexpected religious theme. The book took a sharp turn into very religious territory, which I wasn't expecting at all from the initial premise. Religious tensions were common between different faiths, particularly in cities with large immigrant populations, and it was entirely realistic for there to be a learning curve on both sides of the table. BUT the extreme religious tension between the Jewish Rosenbachs and Roman-Catholic Joan was unnecessary, and I felt it really detracted from the story. I won't go into detail here, because if you wanted that, you could read the book, but suffice it to say there's a fair amount of tolerance & understanding from the Rosenbachs, and very little from Joan.

The plot wound along with a few bumps, although when I got to the ending, I had two more problems. It felt like 1. the ending had taken forever to get to, and 2. there was no growth of the main character. Joan was exactly the same as she was at the beginning: an impetuous teenager, with no sense of the real world where she actually lived, who only wanted to live in the romantic novels that she adored.

To sum it up:
Pros:
-Well rounded, interesting secondary characters
-Great character interaction
-Rich historical detail that really made the setting come alive

Cons:
-Religious tension
-Unnecessary length - boy, was it a long read.
-Joan's inability to remember that this was her job, and not a play on stage
-Lousy ending
-No main character growth


While I found most of the characters to be deeply layered, the family/servant dynamic really interesting, and the setting true to history, I just could not like this book. I would have liked to, for all the reasons I mentioned at the beginning, but I just couldn't. I'd love to check out another book by this author, to see if it was just this particular book that I couldn't deal with.

[Laura]

Wow, just wow

If you read the publisher's description you would never read this book.

Read just the first chapter and you will be captured by Joan. The voice is so genuine, the history of the time so well researched that you feel this is a girl from Edwardian times.

It starts out as though it might be a Little house on the Prairie type of book, but then she moves to Baltimore.

I love how I can never guess how the story will go. I can see all the characters and enjoyed meeting them all. Excellent historical fiction.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this YA novel from start to finish, smiling at and rooting for the engaging and endearing 14 year old year old Joan in this coming of age story. Joan's story takes place in the first decade of the 20th Century and is told through diary entries in which she pours out her heart and tells all that happens in her life. She reminded me a lot of Anne Shirley from [book:Anne of Green Gables|8127. She has a lot of pluck, is very intelligent, unwittingly gets into a lot trouble, but always lands on her feet. Joan loves books. Good books. Joan's references to these is just one of the charming and enjoyable aspects of this novel.

She escapes a life of drudgery on her hateful father's farm and finds a position as a "hired girl" in a wealthy Jewish household in Baltimore where the bulk of the narrative takes place. Having never met a Jew (except between the pages of a book) Joan knows nothing about Jews or their customs. It was great fun watching Joan learn these traditions making mistakes along the way. The members of the Jewish household were well-drawn. I especially liked the "mensch" of a father who encouraged Joan's love of reading and and who would discuss books with Joan and loan her books from his library. These book discussions are priceless as are Joan's thoughts about the many books she read and loved and the ones which bored her. The way she dealt with Sophocles had me laughing aloud.

Joan, being 14 years old, goes through other firsts during the course of this novel; her first kiss and first love, and making a decision about her own religion, Catholicism, and how important that is to be in her life. Being Catholic in a Jewish household was a terrific set up for Joan to learn the history of "tension" between Jews and Christians throughout history as well as in the present day. Interfaith marriage as well and other issues of Jews and Christians coexisting are raised in a sensitive and engaging manner.

Joan is 16 at the end of book going off to start on a new adventure. My only regret is that the book ends without a sequel in sight. I would love to follow Joan on her life's journey.

[Figgy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hired Girl is engaging in a subtle, endearing way. Upon picking it up and realising that the whole thing is told in diary format, I’ll admit I was reluctant to read it. Epistolary stories can be done amazingly well, but they can also quickly go wrong.

However, within a few pages I was hooked.

Joan is young and naive, with elements of characters brought to us by Alcott and Montgomery, but she fancies herself something of a Jane Eyre. She’s a romantic at heart, adores her books, and has a temper and logic befitting a fourteen-year-old in the early nineteen-hundreds. She does things she knows will get her in trouble, but she talks herself into believing she’s doing the right thing. She’s often frustrating, self-serving, and incredibly obstinate despite her oppressive upbringing.

And yet the reader can’t help but feel for her as she stumbles through her new life.

The rest of this review can be found HERE!

[Eliza Crewe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one despite it being an epistolary novel. I did get a little frustrated at the very end because of the MC's romantic obsession. I get it--she's 14, it was a different time--but her obvious stupidity was dull and turned an otherwise interesting MC into a cliche. Still, I thought it was great up until that point.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

“My books promised me that life wasn’t just made up of workaday tasks and prosaic things. The world is bigger and more colorful and more important than that.”

Joan Skraggs lives on a farm with her horrible father and three brothers. When her father bans her from going to school and burns her beloved books, Joan runs away to Baltimore, lies about her age, and becomes a maid for a Jewish family.

Within a few pages I found myself sympathizing with Joan. She was such a lively, colorful, and imaginative character. I couldn't help falling in love with her.

I loved how the author showed Joan's intelligence and love of books, but also reminded us that she was only fourteen. Joan cried, fell in love with a man much too old for her, held grudges, was clumsy, and hated the way she looked. She was insecure, but at the same time so smart. I loved her voice that seemed to be coming off the pages.

The author drew a wonderful contrast between Joan, the Rosenbachs, and the cranky but lovable housemaid Malka. Joan experienced what it meant to be a servant in a rich household. It confused her when Mr Rosenbach was so kind and treated her like his own daughter, but Mrs. Rosenbach was cold toward her.

This book is written in diary form as Joan records the events of each passing day. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. One moment Joan was shopping for hats and the next going to the opera or meeting strange men in libraries who quoted poetry to her.

At times Joan's naïvety made me wince, for I saw the downfall in one of her grand plans coming a mile ahead. But maybe that's what made her so special. When she was sad I wanted to make her a cup of hot chocolate and give her a warm blanket to snuggle up in. I found myself truly caring for her.

This book explored different religions respectfully, which I found very interesting, but ultimately it was about a young girl's thirst for knowledge. Charming and touching, with a gem of a narrator.

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can* · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But I think the most important thing those books gave me was a kind of faith. My books promised me that life wasn’t just made up of workaday tasks and prosaic things. The world is bigger and more colorful and more important than that.”

“If I had books, if I could scrape together an education, I’d have a future, whether any man ever asked me to marry him or not.”

Very much enjoyed this :) I loved Joan's spirit and her determination to better herself. Some decisions she made backfired but most times she had the best intentions.

It was easy to get sucked into this, I was a little worried at first when I saw it was in diary format but my fears were quickly laid to rest as Joan's 'voice' drew me in.

We don't get point-of-view's from the family and Malka but we get to them fairly well and see their dreams/fears/hopes through Joan's eyes. Mrs Rosenbach was hot and cold and sometimes I didn't like her attitude but she wasn't a bad person.

The book didn't overly focus on Joan's religion, it was just a part of her and it had me smiling to see her so passionate about it.

Malka was my favorite though, tough old cookie :) Mimi was a little brat at times but loved her spirit.

Liked David well enough but kind of glad something didn't happen that I thought might happen... it was handled very well.

A very engrossing book, highly recommend :) If she ever writes more about Joan, I would gladly pick it up to see what happens to her next.

[Jenny Q]

I did not realize that the narrator was so young, or that the entire novel is told via diary entries. While it is easy to feel for Joan and want to root for her, this is a dense, slow-moving story. It's getting rave reviews from many readers, and I'm sure it is good for those willing to stick through it, but I just don't have the patience for this type of read right now. Maybe I'll try it again in the future.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoughts soon.

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished The Hired Girl over a week ago. At first glance, I never would have guessed I would like Joan Skraggs so much. She invited you into her life using a diary. She spoke to you using her written words. I felt like I was a fly on the wall watching her life play out. The emotions she evoked were intense yet calming. Embarrassing but composed. Heartbreaking as well as blessed.

You see, Joan was fourteen years old in 1911; she was the youngest and only daughter of a couple whom probably should never have married. Her father was a farmer and an angry man. To say he was difficult would have been too kind. Her mother died when she was ten years old. Until then, she wished with all her love that Joan would get an education. Joan tried her best but finally made the decision to run away from home. Her life had become stifling during the past four years.

She ended up in the home of of Mr. and Mrs. Rosenbach. Their adult son, Solomon, found her in the streets of Baltimore, MD. He convinced her to accept his goodwill and stay, temporarily, at his parents’ home. Before 24 hours ended, she was hired as their elderly housekeeper’s assistant.

Except Joan gave them a false name: Janet Lovelace. She told the Rosenbachs she was 18 years old but several family members were not convinced. In some ways, she reminded me of a young Anne of Green Gables. She hated and loved with an intense power. Her optimism was contagious. She was limited by her job as a servant but at the same time she was a free spirit.

There were religious undercurrents because Joan/Janet sought membership into the Catholic church while at the same time working -and learning- in a Jewish household. The odd thing was I never thought of the story as ‘inspirational’. Her reverence came naturally. I loved her relationship with Mr. Rosenbach. He had a father-like presence.

The Hired Girl was a uniquely written historical narrative and mastered the genre-mix. Because of the year and it was a YA novel, it had a moralistic quality. Each incident Joan/Janet underwent resolved itself with a lesson learned. I thought the author was a master of character and a superb stylist.

If you are looking for a G-rated story with an interesting premise, look no further.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm partly admiring and partly torn, because Joan's voice absolutely carries this story - but at the same time, it glosses over a lot of her mistakes, which, even for a fourteen-year-old, feel a bit much. She's a fourteen-year-old who really needs her job, after all, and she forgets that a little too easily and a little too often.

Then there's this:

I didn't promise to write another diary, though. Once someone reads your diary, you're never the same again. You realize you're not alone when you write, and you start to write for the person who will read your words. I think that's a bad thing, but I'm not sure, because I do think of being an author someday, and authors have to commune with their readers.

The entire story is told through Joan's diary, and that a diary would be detailed enough and coherent enough to carry a story is a conceit readers agree to in the beginning of the book. That paragraph from the last entry undermines the conceit, though, because it twists Joan's voice and the author's together, and what Joan wrote before is pulled out of its context and reframed.

[QNPoohBear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joan Skaggs is tired of being a drudge on her father's farm. She dreams of becoming uplifted and enlightened to become a teacher like her idol, Miss Chandler. It was Miss Chandler who first introduced Joan to books. Joan owns three books: Jane Eyre, Dombey and Son and Ivanhoe. She's read them all many times and longs for more. Her beloved mother understood but her mother is dead, leaving Joan's father and brothers to make a slave of her. When the situation at home becomes intolerable, Joan finally takes a stand. When the stand-off threatens to destroy her dreams, Joan takes off. She finds herself in Baltimore living under a new identity as a hired girl, Janet Lovelace. As a hired girl she can make as much as $6 a week for doing the same or fewer chores she had on the farm. Throughout the course of a year from 1911-1912 Joan writes in her diary of all she experiences and feels, of all her hopes and dreams for her future and how they are and aren't coming true.

This book is for fans of Anne of Green Gables, Daddy-Long-Legs and Jane Eyre. It's very long for a YA historical fiction book - almost 400 pages - but the pace moves quickly enough to be interesting and move the plot along. The first section is a little long before it comes to the exciting part and there's a whole lot about religion, but the religious content is woven into the plot as part of the characters and how they relate to one another and the world around them. There's a message there but it's not heavy handed. A little quibble about Janet's religious instruction. She would have to be baptized before she was confirmed and took her first communion. I'm not sure how that worked in 1911. I did like the details about Mass being in Latin and the priest's back to the congregation. I don't know how many young readers would know that unless their grandparents told them or their teachers tell them. The details about work in 1911 are also very rich and descriptive. Even with modern labor-saving devices, being a hired girl was still a lot of work. The ending of the novel reminded me a lot of Daddy Long-Legs, again probably on purpose.

Joan/Janet is very silly but in a charming, naive way. She writes like Anne Shirley talks- probably on purpose on the part of the author. I didn't see much growth until the last third of the book but it was there earlier, just too subtle to really realize. I found Joan/Janet very likable and could relate to her dream world. I think all teenage girls will be able to relate to her in many respects. Her family is completely horrible and a bit on the stereotypical side but Father acts as a catalyst for the action. I liked how her romance played out. It was very realistic.

The Rosenbachs are very progressive for their day - maybe a little too much to be completely accurate but they're so progressive they appear modern. They do have their prejudices regarding class, religion and ethnicity. They are a loving family and the parents just want their children to be happy. Their faith is important to them and an integral part of their lives but I felt that it was maybe a little too much for German Jews at that time. Mimi is annoying but I liked her for the most part. I agree with Janet's feelings about her and it's too bad Mimi hates reading because she's so much like Amy March! Maybe by the time she finishes Little Women she'll figure that out.

I highly recommend this book to readers 12+, especially those who love Anne of Green Gables and Daddy-Long-Legs.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told through diary entries, Laura Amy Schlitz provides young readers with an engaging, historically accurate view of the life of a young girl in her newest book, “The Hired Girl”.

When 14 year-old Joan’s mother dies, her stark life on a meager Pennsylvania farm becomes even more inhospitable. Although she’s a promising student, her father insists she quit school and work on the farm. While her brothers earn a small amount of money for their contributions to the farm operations, Joan’s father denies her any income. When Joan’s former teacher visits and brings books for her to borrow, Joan’s father orders the teacher off the property and forbids her from visiting again. When he burns the three books Joan owns (including her favorite, Jane Eyre) Joan decides to leave home and look for work as a hired girl in a city far from the family farm.

Joan pretends she is 18 and is immediately hired by a well-to-do Jewish family in Baltimore. Here her naivete is on display in full force. While she’s no stranger to hard work, she has many lessons to learn about religion, tolerance, love, the servant/employer relationship and more.

I enjoyed “The Hired Girl”. Joan is an utterly believable 14 year old (whether it’s 1911 or 2015 somethings are constant – one day is “the best day ever”, the next day “the worst”, and the following day “so good, I wish it would never end”). The text incorporates fantastic vocabulary words – I was happy to be reading on my e-reader so that I could easily look them up! This is partially due to the era and partially due to Joan’s character, who loved classic literature and tried to incorporate the words she read into her diary entries.

There’s much for today’s tweens/early teens to learn from reading “The Hired Girl”. The historical setting is interesting, while the messages about tolerance, education, equal opportunities, and “puppy love” are timeless. I do wonder though whether the length and pacing of this book would hold the attention of this age group (which I believe is the intended audience). Sadly, I sense they might think it too boring.

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

What originally started out as an intriguing story (girl runs away from her horrible home and flees to the city where she's determined to make her own way and get an education) somehow dissolved into the girl trying to convert the Jewish family who hired her to Christianity and then becoming obsessed with a boy (he's 21, she's 14).

Some of the many, many quotes that didn't sit well with me:

I don’t mean that in an anti-Semitic kind of way, because the Jews are good and noble-hearted and love God.

She was overjoyed to hear from me, but I think she is a little prejudiced, because she’s worried that the Rosenbachs are educating me so they can convert me to Judaism…Maybe she’ll let me teach her about the goodness of the Jews.

My love for him was so pure that I wanted to give him everything, even if I lost myself.

“Oh, David, don’t you see? You’d still be free, because we wouldn’t be married. And nobody would blame you. They’d blame me, because they always blame the girl. I’d be the one taking the risk, and I don’t care about being depraved, because it doesn’t feel depraved, not when we’re in love-“

Nope. No thank you. What a disappointment.

For the full review and more, head over to The Pretty Good Gatsby!

[Aimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of The Hired Girl from Walker Books Australia and New Zealand to review. On the cover it says that this has the “charm of Little Women and the wit of Anne of Green Gables.” I’m kind of embarrassed to say I haven’t read either of these yet. But that just means I can’t compare them. Which is a good thing. I think.

This book is told through Joan’s diary entries. She received the diary from her teacher because Joan wanted to be a writer. Her life gets worse when she’s pulled out of school to do the ‘women’s work’ on the farm. She tries a few things to make her life a little better but not everything turns out the way she planned them to so she decides to leave. Joan changes her name and lies about her age so she can be a hired girl.

Joan’s life is full of drama. Drama that she created. I think she had the best intentions but she was so young, naive and a bit of a romantic and she’d come up with these plans to help the people around her and most of them backfired on her. It was kind of annoying how naive Joan was but I still liked her.

I’m not religious so I found all the talk about religion a little too much and sometimes really preachy. It was interesting to see the difficulties a Catholic girl would have had working in a Jewish household, learning their ways but while also being true to her own faith. Especially when a certain person told her she shouldn’t be working for them because they were Jews. I didn’t see a problem with her working for them. Until she got it into her head that she was going to convert them all. I could see that one blowing up in her face. What a stupid thing to do. I understand that Joan’s faith was a big part of who she is but it just got to be a bit too much for me. Which is one reason I only gave it three stars.

Despite those things I did actually like The Hired Girl. It had some funny and entertaining moments. Plus, all the drama was fun to read about. I’m glad that Joan learned her lesson to not interfere in other people’s lives. She did grow up a lot in the book. Schlitz wrote some very colourful and entertaining characters, even if some of them did annoy me.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by how charming this novel was. Joan is a very delightful and endearing character. Her strong desire for knowledge and to rise above her station in life was very admirable and something I think a lot of readers, specifically millennials, can really relate to. I know I did.

Part of Joan's appeal was in the quality of the writing. It was so perfectly suited for the time period, characters, and story. The plot was paced perfectly. The story moved fairly quickly in six different parts, but Schiltz knew when to slow it down a little and savor some quieter moments. She is also excellent at building tension! I had to hold my breath and close the book a few times when conflict developed. I was terrified for Joan facing setbacks in her pursuit for a better life.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was the romance. I won't spoil anything but I really, really appreciated it. It defies a lot of tropes in YA Lit and I was really happy with the result. This and her different religious learning experiences were really great and I just love how it aided her character development.

Unfortunately, because of the time period it takes place in, there was a racist comment (around the beginning of Part 2, I think). Something along the lines of 'he was gentlemanly for a black person'. Because of this, I can totally understand if someone would not like Joan or this book. It's a more realistic depiction for the time period, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to almost anyone, particularly aspiring young feminists or those who really, really love period pieces.

[Paula Vince · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd challenge anyone to make it through this story without loving the main character and wanting the very best for her.

It takes the form of a diary written over the course of one year in 1911. Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs tells her own tale of how she escapes an intolerable home situation to work as housemaid for the Rosenbach family of Baltimore. Sometimes the style gets melodramatic, which suits Joan's personality, circumstances and the time period in which she lives.

It's easy to feel her desperation from the start. Joan's mother has passed away, her three elder brothers are boorish, and their father might surely be one of the most horrible paternal figures to be found in literature. Trapped in an emotionally abusive household, working hard every waking hour with no gratitude or pay, and no resources to satisfy her hunger for culture and knowledge, it's clear she has to find a way out.

The story highlights the difficulty of people who long to educate themselves with no means. For many hired girls in her position, books were only to be dusted, and certainly never touched. It's evident to those from modern times what a shame it is for people in this position to be then looked down on by others, for their lack of education when it isn't their fault. However, Joan is fortunate to end up in the home of Mr Rosenbach, who is depicted as the opposite of Joan's own father.

The story shows that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Joan has accepted her father's cruel assessment of her personal attributes, and comes to see that other characters, such as Mimi and David, regard her in a completely different way.

I love Joan's initiative, which always has the potential to go either way for her. The same attribute that spurs her to leave home leads to trouble on other occasions. How easy it would have been for her to stay put and assume that was her only option, as so many others must have done. This book is a strong call to readers not to 'settle'.

The section of the book in which she first falls in love has moments which are both touching and comical. Daydreaming about that boy takes Joan's attention away from all the fresh, new experiences she greatly appreciated until her feelings for him overshadow everything. Although it's fun to read, it also holds quite a bit of wisdom. All those other good parts of life are still just as appealing in the background, waiting for her to come back down to earth.

I love Joan's tendency to 'call a spade a spade', so to speak. She isn't used to genteel manners and assuming behaviour for show. If something doesn't strike her as genuine and true, she'll say so. This helps her to think hard as she gets involved in dogmatism with the Catholic priest, Father Horst, when he tries to convince her not to work for the Jewish Rosenbachs. It also helps her to make the sorts of honest observations people may often feel, but not say, such as how resentful she gets when she has put forward her best effort and people still find fault with her, or when people criticise her for seemingly superficial reasons, or how embarrassed she feels when she doesn't 'get' the right social cues and feels she ought to.

Overall, it's great to see a new book for young adults set in this time period. Joan has many similarities to girls of her age through many generations, but the main difference may be her strong work ethic, which she accepts as part of life. How many fourteen-year-old girls who decide to make a chicken pie would include wringing the necks and plucking the chickens as an inevitable part of the job? By the end, I believe she's succeeded in making household chores come across as a noble art which not just anybody can carry off well. And that may be a challenge for teenage readers.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, while sometimes exasperating, this is a nice, sweet book and I didn't dislike it as much as this review is going to make it sound. There is something very sweet and endearing about this book and its main character, but there is also something incredibly irritating too, and I can't decide which side of the scale is winning. Joan/Janet is so sweet and innocent and well meaning, and it's true that I wanted good things for her, but at the same time, her well-meaning meddling and naiveté were exhausting and I was pretty embarrassed for her for most of the second half of the book. I found the extended religious discussion tedious as well, although I enjoyed learning more about Judaism. The Catholic parts grated on my nerves, probably because I went through all that in school and didn't need to relive it.

[Annina Luck Wildermuth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great old-fashioned read that has it all for me: a fiesty, intelligent heroine, perfect evocation of time and place, an elegant Jewish neighborhood of early 20th century Baltimore, and great characters. I wonder what it would like to read this as a 12 year old?

I still remember how amazing it was to read Jane Eyre for the first time at about that age, a book which The Hired Girl resembles and also references.

[Monica Edinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my post revealing the cover:

Fans of Laura Amy Schlitz are a patient bunch. We know that it takes time for her beautiful, unique, and complex stories to come into being. Happily, the wait is always worth it. Such is the case for The Hired Girl, out this fall from Candlewick Press. In the form of a diary, the entries are written by the only daughter of a hardscrabble Pennsylvanian widower farmer with four sons. Eager to read, write, learn, and gain knowledge of every sort, 14 year-old Joan Skraggs, when we first meet her, has a brutal life and it seems as if there will be no way out for her.  Yet being resourceful and clever, Joan ...well, you will need to read the book to find out what happens. As you would expect from Schlitz, the language is lush, full of vivid sensory details and emotional resonance. I was immersed in Joan's 1911 experiences, anxiously following her through pain, happiness, despair, love, humor, knowledge, consideration of class, and serious contemplation of faith. Something you all have to look forward to this fall.

[Stacey Lucky · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has SO much filler!! I thought it would never end. I did not enjoy the religious aspect so much. I am a confirmed Roman Catholic, went to private catholic school from pre k-12 grade. I had to go to mass every Thursday morning and every Sunday morning plus holy day of obligations (there are many!), and had a whole period of religion class everyday. This book just brought up all those memories of countless hours I had to sit through of my younger life. I did not like having it shoved all back in my face AND almost made to feel guilty at times for being Catholic. I didn't understand it. I forced myself to finish this book to see what was the point of all the "Catholics don't like Jews" nonsense but it was for nothing. Just really rubbed me the wrong way. I had a few moments of "did she really just say that?!" And that's when I would think of the author.. Where were you going with all of that?? I like to escape my life when I read, this book did just the opposite and tried to make me feel guilty about it ..maybe I will shorten this review later, I'm sure someone will have something to say about it. But I needed to vent that ...done

[Mary Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll miss Joan/Janet. We ate breakfast together for the past couple of weeks. She's a delight. My teen self adored her!

Some quotes:

"I'd rather be impetuous than placid any day." p.123

"Being proud belongs in novels. In real life, you eat the cinnamon toast, even if your heart is burning." p.377

"Once someone reads your diary, you're never the same again. You realize you're not alone when you write, and you start to write for the person who will read your words." p.381