The Hired Girl

Laura Amy Schlitz's 'The Hired Girl' is a compelling historical fiction novel, presented as the journal entries of 14-year-old Joan Skraggs. After her mother's death, Joan endures a life of servitude under her cruel father and brothers on a Pennsylvania farm. Her love for reading and desire for education are stifled, leading her to run away and seek employment as a 'hired girl' in Baltimore. The book masterfully explores Joan's journey of self-discovery, independence, and burgeoning feminism in the optimistic years before World War I. It delves into themes of social class, religion, literature, and first love, all while maintaining a humorous and uplifting tone. This 400-page chapter book is ideal for young adults interested in strong female protagonists and historical settings.

Ever since the untimely death of her mother, 14 year-old Joan Skraggs has been desperately unhappy. Under the thumb of her cruel father and three sullen brothers, Joan lives like a servant on their farm just outside of Lancaster, forever cooking, cleaning, and attending to the many demands of the home. But she has little freedom, and less support from her family for her love of reading and blossoming interest in education. But when her father tells Joan she can't go to school anymore, it sets off a journey that will see her become first a runaway, then a hired girl on $6 a week, and finally her very own young woman. Set in America during the optimistic years before the First World War, and told through a series of journal entries, THE HIRED GIRL is the story of a young girl in search of Real Life and True Love. It takes in feminism and housework; money, religion, and social class; literature and education, romanticism and realism, first love and sexual yearnings, cats, hats, and bunions. And it's a comedy.