Review-The Hired Girl, by Laura Amy Schlitz

The Hired Girl
Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick Press
Publication month: September 2015
978-0-7636-7818-0
$17.99/$23.99 Canada
400 pages
Age 12+




                                                                  Review by Wisteria©

The heroine of this coming of age novel is a feisty, headstrong, inherently impulsive powerhouse-a memorable character destined to be a classic. The Hired Girl, set in the year 1911 on a Pennsylvania farm is historical fiction.  However, the author has a storyteller's magical gift to transport the readers  into the mind  of Joan Scraggs and her experiences through her daily diary. Joan, fourteen, lives with her three brothers and evil tempered father.  After her mom dies, Joan is forced to assume her mom's arduous chores, exhaustive and thankless. She seeks solace in her passion for reading. The few books she owns have been read again and again.  Her father is determined to end her educational goals and the close relationship she has with her favorite teacher. Joan is very quick witted and eager to learn. Yet, when her teacher tries to persuade her father that Joan should stay in school she is rebuked.  Later, her father spews words of vitreous hatred at his daughter. Sadly, it just confirms what she has felt all along.  Unloved and shackled to a hard life on the farm she makes plans to flee.  As hateful as her father is, she recalls her mom's love and support.  Fortunately, her mother left a rainy day treasure in the ruffles of her favorite doll. With her mother's gift and and timely luck Joan secures a job as the hired girl, with a Jewish family.  Although she leads her employers to believe she is eighteen, assumes the name Janet, she settles into this new life.  It is through her diary that the reader will come to empathize and love Janet (Joan).   Her struggles with her own faith, love, women's roles, Anti-semitism and the social class prejudice prevalent are believable. The author captures not only the flavor of this period in history, but she allows the reader to experience Joan's her inner most thoughts, as only a diary will allow.  Laura Amy Schlitz is a gifted storyteller, one of my favorite young adult/tween writers. This one is now on my list to be order for my school's media center. The Hired Girl, with multiple themes and character study possibilities, is the perfect novel for classroom libraries, literature study and read aloud.  Yet it will stand out as a well loved free choice read for young and adult readers. Highly recommended. ~Wisteria Leigh

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Disclosure: An uncorrected proof was sent to me with a request for an unbiased review.  This review is my honest opinion.

© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2008-2015]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Review-The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, by Ann Weisgarber

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF RACHEL DUPREE
by Ann Weisgarber
Viking Penguin
978-0-670-02201-4
$25.95
336 pages
August 12, 2010





 Why is this little girl suddenly about to be lowered to the dark bottom of their well attached to a plank, while her mother stands above praying for Jesus to stay by her daughter’s her side?  The Personal History of Rachel Dupree opens with a disturbing image, frightening details of a six year old child conjure a number of possibilities as to why she is strapped to the plank. Weisgarber sets a foreboding tone with intense dramatic tension from the onset.  Questions bombard your metacognition with a compulsion to read on for answers. 

The story is about Rachel, a worker in a boardinghouse, who becomes smitten by the owner’s son.  Isaac Dupree,  an African American, is from a socially prominent family in Chicago.  His dream, to the disappointment of his domineering mother, is to own land out west and acquire a spread with considerable acreage. Isaac believes landownership will guarantee status and respect among his predominately white neighbors.  To Isaac, land makes the man, it means everything.   Isaac agrees to marry Rachel, in return, she will deed her allowable 160 acres to him. They make a pact to stay married one year as they journey to the Badlands of South Dakota to stake their claim. To Rachel love is the force that drives her, with a determination to make her marriage last beyond one year. 

The Badlands, a desolate and harshly brutal environment is not an easy life for most women.  The isolation can be miserable and lonely with the proximity of neighbors a distance away.  Yet, it is breathtakingly beautiful with majestic panoramic landscapes that appear infinite. Isaac is quite successful and his quest to acquire land has made him one of the largest landowners around.  

In 1917, after surpassing their one year anniversary by thirteen years, they are still married and a severe drought is threatening their world. Rachel is pregnant again and her family means everything to her. Survival in the Badlands is not easy for anyone, but Isaac Dupree has something to prove, he is on of the few African American ranchers around, and to him land earns him respect.  Rachel sees more opportunity for her children, wanting them exposed to city life. A fissure begins to widen between the two that threatens to fracture the family.

Weisgarber’s story is a moving memoir-like read of a pioneering women with tremendous strength and wisdom who faces tough choices. The dialogue flows with a natural rhythmic cadence you would expect to hear at this time. 

The Great Plains offered little support for the supplicant role of women, or the displaced Indians. You will embrace The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, a rich affecting read that will endure.

Disclosure: This book was a free copy sent to me by IRB for review. The review posted is my honest opinion and free of bias.


© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2008-2011].