HISTORICAL FICTION - The Hired Girl

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Schiltz, Laura. 1991. The Hired Girl. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. ISBN 9781549091698

PLOT SUMMARY

This storyline takes place in the early 1900s. Joan Skraggs, told from her perspective, is a fourteen-year-old farm girl from Pennsylvania.  After her mother passes away, Joan is left to step up as the woman of the household and care for her fathers and brothers. She does all the work and is mistreated often. She finds an escape often in books, which her father disagrees with. He ends up burning her books when she requested to be paid for some of her duties as she was growing up and needed money of her own. Joan decides to run away, lie about her age, and start a new life as a hired girl in a Jewish household. She changes her name to Janet and must learn to navigate her new life and the culture that goes along with it. Her diary thoughts take the reader through her daily life all through 1911. In the end, when things seemed at their worst for Joan, something surprising happens from where she least expects it. She is offered a spot at a new school to finish her education just as her mother had dreamed of for her.  

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This book is written through diary entries from the main character. Doing this allows the reader a look inside her thoughts, feelings, and heart as she grows up. She pours her thoughts and emotions into her diary, which gives the reader the first-hand experience of feeling what she went through. Readers are able to picture this small, strong fourteen-year-old girl who is verbally abused by her father, growing into a young woman learning that there is more outside the life of that of a farm girl.

The author does a good job of making the girl relatable to current girls, as most girls this age have crushes, just like Joan does with the flirty son David. She describes him as “tall and robust and wholesome looking.” The author also highlights Joan’s intellect by including multiple phrases that demonstrate a higher vocabulary and use of figurative language. For example, she mentions that she going out “like a lamb to the slaughter.” Learning the other character's reactions to learning how well she reads puts a focus on how in that time era, it was not as common for women to read well or be too educated.

From Joan’s Pennsylvania farm to the lavish home of the Rosenbachs, Schiltz is remarkable at creating the vivid imagery that truly makes the settings come to life. She does a fantastic job explaining the social functions such as the trip to the Opera, that the reader feels like they are there present alongside Joan. She does such a good job on the character’s emotions that you almost forget she is a 14-year-old in love and not a young adult in love.

The main character, Joan, makes many references to well-known historical books that had well-known heroines like Anne Shirley, Jo March, Cassandra Mortmain, and Jane Eyre. Schiltz also makes use of some Jewish sayings, and Hebrew words, and describes Jewish customs from Joan’s perspective. She does a remarkable historical context by describing the way Jewish people were treated during this time period in American history.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

BOOKLIST: “Written as a diary, the first-person narrative brings immediacy to Joan’s story and intimacy to her confessions and revelations. The distinctive household setting and the many secondary characters are well developed, while Joan comes alive on the page as a vulnerable, good-hearted, and sometimes painfully self-aware character struggling to find her place in the world. A memorable novel from a captivating storyteller.” 

 

HORN BOOK MAGAZINE: “The book is framed as Joan’s diary, and her weaknesses, foibles, and naiveté come through as clearly—and as frequently—as her hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The pacing can be a little slow (she doesn’t even get to Baltimore, where the bulk of the story takes place, until almost eighty pages in), but by the end, readers feel as if they’ve witnessed the real, authentic growth of a memorable young woman.” 

KIRKUS: “The diary format allows Joan's romantic tendencies full rein, as well as narrative latitude for a few highly improbable scenarios and wildly silly passion. Tons of period details, especially about clothing, round out a highly satisfying and smart breast-clutcher from this Newbery-winning author.” 

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “Schlitz (Splendors & Glooms) has crafted another exquisite literary gem, one told entirely via Joan's vivid, humorous, and emotionally resonant diary entries over a year and a half. Through Joan's naïve perspective, Schlitz frankly discusses class, religion, women's education, art, literature, and romance. Her overactive imagination, passions, and impulsive disregard for propriety often get Joan into trouble, but these same qualities will endear her to readers everywhere.”

 

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “Readers are treated to a domestic education as Joan describes the incredible amount of work required to keep the house in the early 20th century. Coming-of-age drama and deeper questions of faith, belonging, and womanhood are balanced with just the right blend of humor. VERDICT A wonderful look into the life of a strong girl who learns that she needs the love of others to truly grow up.”

 

Awards: 

• Sydney Taylor Book Award, 2016

• Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA), 2015
  
  

CONNECTIONS

• For upper grades (past elementary), this book would be great to highlight the effects of anti-Semitism and discrimination in the early 1900s.
  
  

• Social Studies classes could read this prior to a unit study over World War I.
  
  

• ELAR, lesson with a focus on how first-person perspective diary entries brought the story to life. Would that be different using a third-person point of view?
  
  

• Other books that are written by Laura A. Schlitz:

• Schlitz, L. GOOD MASTERS! SWEET LADIES!: VOICES FROM A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE. ISBN: 9780763650940

• Schlitz, L. SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS. ISBN: 9780763669263