Why I liked it: The Hired Girl
's central character, Joan is one you are constantly rooting for, that is when you are not shaking your head at her. At the age of 14, things look bleak for Joan. She can no longer attend school, as her mother is dead and she must keep house for her father and brothers. When she tries to take a stand for her rights as the woman of the house, her father punishes her by burning her books, taking away her only respite from her hard life. But Joan is headstrong and determined not to be ruled by her father, so she decides that she will leave home using the little money her mother left for her. I found myself comparing my own life at the age of fourteen to Joan's and being very thankful that I was not born in the early 1900s.
Joan takes the train from her Pennsylvania farm, stopping briefly in Philadelphia (I love any mention of my home city!), and ends her travels in Baltimore where she hopes to find work. But amazingly, and this is where the head shaking begins, that is the extent of Joan's plans. She would have spent her first night in Baltimore sleeping in a park if not for the kindness of a stranger, Solly Rosenbach, whose family gives her a place to stay and employs her as the help to their aging housekeeper. because she is so tall, Joan lies about her age to the Rosenbachs, which once they discover the truth, explains much of her "misbehavior" and childish impulses. Joan is eager to please and often meddles in the family's affairs, ending up in over her head. Each chapter, formatted as a diary entry, is a roller coaster of emotions which leaves you wondering what Joan will get into next.Classroom application: While all of the characters are fictional, the details of the setting and time period are not. During or after reading the novel, students could research what life was like in 1911 in their city or town. Using The Hired Girl as a mentor text, students could then create characters and write diary entries from their perspectives based on their research. Students could also research how children's and women's rights have changed over time.
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Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
is a tale about friendship set against the backdrop of a historical event, the desegregation of schools. The characters in this novel are complex; few are clearly for or against segregation and several change their stance as the novel progresses. The big twist in the novel, that Elizabeth is passing as white to attend Marlee's middle school, came as a surprise to me as much as it did to Marlee. Once this fact was revealed, a few hints clicked in my head, but I liked that this major event was not overly predictable. Just as the characters' views on desegregation were not simplistic, neither was Elizabeth's attempt at "passing." She feels backlash from both the black and white community in Little Rock. She can no longer attend Marlee's school after her secret is discovered, but she is scorned by her classmates at the black middle school for trying to better herself. Marlee and Elizabeth's friendship also becomes riskier once Elizabeth's true identity is known, but Marlee turns out to be fiercely loyal, and takes both foolish and extreme risks to hold onto her friendship and protect her friend. In the end, the two girls both grow and help each other change for the better.
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(a memoir), and 
(a graphic novel) and 
centers around a plucky, determined seventeen year old girl, Blue Riley. Her mother is deceased (cancer), her father was just a sperm donor, her sister Cass took off two year ago, her former best friend doesn't understand her and her old boyfriend is of no interest to her anymore. When Blue hasn't heard from Cass in far too long, she makes a deal with the devil, trading her voice for the ability to track down her sister, a power vested in Blue's hiking boots. She heads West from Maine, but her boots seem to lead her more toward trouble than toward finding her sister.
is a perfect novel for teenage romance enthusiasts. From the moment Daniel and Clover meet until the novel's end, the whirlwind of emotions never dies down. Does he like me? Does she still like me? Do I like him? Can I trust her? Why is he holding back? Why is she acting that way? Why doesn't he want to be together? The chapters are told in alternating perspectives, sometimes from Daniel's point of view and sometimes from Clover, so you can't help but get sucked into the drama of their relationship. Despite the feelings that the two have for each other, both teenagers are haunted by events in their past. Daniel is still reeling from the suicide of a past girlfriend and Clover is still struggling to cope with her mother's death, caused by the man she believed was her father, and his subsequent suicide.
