“Every crease is a story.”
Open Library readers: 4.32 / 5 from 92 ratings. Separate from ratings here.Catalogue checked 2026-10-02.
Ever since the untimely death of her mother, 14 year-old Joan Skraggs has been desperately unhappy. Under the thumb of her cruel father and three sullen brothers, Joan lives like a servant on their farm just outside of Lancaster, forever cooking, cleaning, and attending to the many demands of the home. But she has little freedom, and less support from her family for her love of reading and blossoming interest in education. But when her father tells Joan she can't go to school anymore, it sets off a journey that will see her become first a runaway, then a hired girl on $6 a week, and finally her very own young woman. Set in America during the optimistic years before the First World War, and…
Ever since the untimely death of her mother, 14 year-old Joan Skraggs has been desperately unhappy. Under the thumb of her cruel father and three sullen brothers, Joan lives like a servant on their farm just outside of Lancaster, forever cooking, cleaning, and attending to the many demands of the home. But she has little freedom, and less support from her family for her love of reading and blossoming interest in education. But when her father tells Joan she can't go to school anymore, it sets off a journey that will see her become first a runaway, then a hired girl on $6 a week, and finally her very own young woman. Set in America during the optimistic years before the First World War, and told through a series of journal entries, THE HIRED GIRL is the story of a young girl in search of Real Life and True Love. It takes in feminism and housework; money, religion, and social class; literature and education, romanticism and realism, first love and sexual yearnings, cats, hats, and bunions. And it's a comedy.
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Bibliographic source: Open LibraryThe Hired Girl is by Laura Amy Schlitz. The catalogue records its first publication in 2015. A later edition may have a different publication date on its copyright page.
The catalogue records 400 pages for a representative edition. Pagination varies with the publisher, format, type size and translation, so check the edition you intend to read.
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Check a copy's editionCreasy Spines ratings come from readers here. The separate Open Library score is 4.32 out of 5 from 92 ratings in our catalogue snapshot. It belongs to a different reader community and is not combined with our ratings.
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Look for a copyThe Hired Girl
Candlewick, 2017 / Paperback, 400 pp.
ISBN 9780763694500
The Hired Girl
Walker Books, 2016 / Paperback, 480 pp.
ISBN 9781406365931
The Hired Girl
Walker Books, 2015 / Hardcover, 392 pp.
ISBN 9781406361407
The Hired Girl
Walker Books, 2015 / Hardcover, 392 pp.
ISBN 9781406361407
The Hired Girl
Candlewick Press, 2015 / Hardcover, 392 pp.
ISBN 9780763678180
The Hired Girl
Recorded Books, 2015 / Audiobook
ISBN 9781490632247
Hired Girl
Candlewick Press, 2017
ISBN 9781536429350
Hired Girl
Candlewick Press, 2015
ISBN 9780763686871
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Your shelves, ratings and reviews belong to the book, not a particular edition. Edition data from Open Library.