The Hired Girl

Reviewed by: Joanne Libby - Freeport Community Library, Freeport, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 12, 2015

Review

This book is written in diary format and its entries are from June 4, 1911 to September 29, 1912. The author Joan is fourteen years old and lives with her widowed father and 3 brothers on a farm in Pennsylvania. Her father is cruel and won't allow her to go back to school in the fall and also burns her books which she treasures. So she runs away from home and ends up in Baltimore where she is hired as a servant in a Jewish household. She pretends to be 18, but her actions are those of a 14 year old. She is very good as a cleaning person, but her youth causes her to do foolish things which threaten her position with the family she works for. It all ends up well for Joan at the end of the book as she can continue her schooling and perhaps become a teacher as her mother had hoped for her. I thought that what this book did best was to show the reader how Catholics and Jews perceived each other at the turn of the century. The traditions of a Jewish household were explained and also what Joan believed to be what was important to her to become a true Catholic. Joan was very dramatic in her diary writing and I found her antics difficult to read a lot of the time. I knew (because I am no longer 14 years old !) that her foolishness would only get her into trouble. I don't know if a younger reader would appreciate these descriptions.

Overall Book Score: very good