The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

Interest Level: 7th grade to Young Adult

Reading Level: 5.3 grade

Lexile: 810

Genre: Historical Fiction/Non-fiction Journal

Currently on pg. 119; Monday, July the tenth, 1911; Part Three 

This book was given to me by a colleague for consideration for the library's collection. I started reading it but put it to the side when my hold on the companion book to Salvage by Alexandra Duncan came in at the public library. I got to page 30 of Sound, the companion book,  and then returned to reading The Hired Girl. The Hired Girl is amazing! Historical fiction is right up my alley. It reaches the high honor of 'a book that I carry everywhere with the hopes that I will get a minute or two to read it'. I love that the story is inspired by Schlitz's grandmother's journal. I so badly want Joan/Janet to find happiness.

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

Finished the book

The language could be a challenge for some readers. The author uses the term 'right so'  to mean yes, correct, and okay.  When said as a question, 'Right so?' it means is that true. She puts the word 'so' in front of titles such as so missus and so doctor. I believe it is a sign of respect, a title in itself. Where the author uses 'Let's be true about it,' we would simply say 'Tell the truth.'. Mercies is the word the author uses in place of Lord.  The word 'some' as in 'That 's some lovely' means very. Even if the language is challenging for younger readers, it adds an excellent element to the story.

I am going to put this book on the library's wish list. I so enjoyed it that I have ordered Duncan's companion novel to "Salvage." 

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

Interest Level: Young Adult

Reading Level: 4.6 grade

Lexile: 730 HL

Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction

Currently on pg. 302, chapter 23

Ava is the captain's daughter. This allows her limited freedom and a certain status on the deep space merchant ship, the Parastrata, and its rigid society. The ship's male-dominated society means that Ava and the women of the Parastrata cannot read or write. When Ava learns she is to be traded in marriage to another merchant ship, she hopes for the best. After all, she is the captain's daughter. But instead, betrayal, banishment, and a brush with love and death are what lays ahead. Ava stows away on a mail sloop bound for Earth in order to escape both her past and her future. A life in deep space has made her body unable to withstand the forces of gravity and it almost kills her. She is taken in by a stranger and that stranger's daughter whom have a floating cabin on the Gyre, a huge mass of scrap and garbage in the Pacific Ocean. This dystopian science fiction focuses on family, self-reliance, and self-esteem. I am enjoying the book. It has entered into the "care it around with me" category.