Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her delicious wit and keen eye to early twentieth-century America in a moving yet comedic tour de force. A humorous coming-of-age story that will appeal to fans of Anne of Green Gables and Little Women.

Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love.

But what hope is there for adventure, beauty or art on a remote farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends?

Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself - because maybe, just maybe, a hired girl cleaning and cooking for six dollars a week can become what a farm girl could only dream of - a woman with a future.

Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz relates Joan's journey from the muck of the chicken coop to the comforts of a society household in Baltimore (Electricity!

Carpet sweepers! Sending out the laundry!), taking readers on an exploration of feminism and housework; religion and literature; love and loyalty; cats, hats and bunions.