In 1911 rural Pennsylvania, fourteen year old bookworm Joan Skraggs is done with letting her domineering farmer father dictate the direction of her life. After he refuses to give her the egg money she’s earned, shames her in front of her beloved teacher and burns her only books, Joan takes the money her dead mother sewed into the skirts of her childhood doll and takes the train to Philadelphia. There she has the good fortune of finding a job as a hired girl with the wealthy Rosenbach family and tastes real freedom for the very first time. Of course, she still works her fingers to the bone, but now there are afternoons off, new hats to be bought with her hard earned salary, and an entire home library to explore. But with these little luxuries come a whole new batch of problems. There are bewildering new rules to follow in the Rosenbach’s formal Jewish household. Malka, the elderly servant she works under is difficult and easily offended. And finally, what about school? Joan longs to return to her education, but now that she’s passed herself off as eighteen to gain employment, how can she ever go back? Because Joan has big dreams of being a teacher like her mother wanted. And cleaning houses isn’t going to cut it. “The truth is, most of the time I don’t think of myself as the hired girl…After all, I’m not going to be a servant all my life.” Can Joan escape the tight constraints of her narrowly defined station? Or will she find a way to break free of her hired girl status and make her mother’s dream come true? This delightful homespun tale, comprised entirely of Joan’s earnest, unintentionally funny journal entries, is powerfully reminiscent of old and new classics like Little Women and A Northern Light. This ode to the power of the written word and the strength and ingenuity of women past and present is as warm, witty and wise as all of award winning Laura Amy Schlitz‘s other works, and I predict that lovely sepia cover will be sporting a bright medal or two come January ’16. Coming to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you September 2015.
