First published 2015
Joan Skraggs clutches the diary her teacher gave her and makes a promise to write with truth and refinement. The fourteen year old lives on Steeple Farm in Pennsylvania where the work never stops and dreams feel impossible. Joan loves novels and wants the adventure and romance she reads about. She refuses to accept that a farm girl has no future. During the summer of 1911, Joan writes in her diary about her plan to escape. She takes a job as hired help in Baltimore, earning six dollars a week for cleaning and cooking. The city household amazes her with electricity, carpet sweepers, and laundry service. Joan navigates her new world while wrestling with questions about work, faith, literature, and love. She discovers that becoming the woman she wants to be requires more than leaving the chicken coop behind.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, family-life, historical-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, rags-to-riches
Setting: Baltimore, Pennsylvania
Period: 1911
392 pages · Hardcover · Candlewick Press