Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

Agent: Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management. Schlitz (Splendors & Glooms) has crafted another exquisite literary gem, one told entirely via Joan’s vivid, humorous. Her overactive imagination, passions, and impulsive disregard for propriety often get Joan into trouble, but these same qualities will endear her to readers everywhere. Candlewick, 17.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7636-7818-0. Joan is reminiscent of heroines like Anne Shirley, Jo March, Cassandra Mortmain, and her own favorite character, Jane Eyre (Joan even gives herself a fittingly literary alias, Janet Lovelace). Yet because Joan is a hard worker, the Rosenbachs are forgiving and good to her, even encouraging her to read from their library. When Clara Wintermute, the only child of a wealthy doctor, pleads that mas-ter puppeteer Gaspare Grisini perform at her birthday party, she unwittingly places herself in the utmost peril. Joan has trouble reconciling her devout Catholic faith with Judaism, mixing up kashrut and even attempting to convert her employers. Newbery Medal-winning author Laura Amy Schlitz has garnered starred reviews and popular acclaim for her Victorian gothic thriller Splendors and Glooms. Through Joan’s naïve perspective, Schlitz frankly discusses class, religion, women’s education, art, literature, and romance. The master puppeteer, Gaspare Grisini, is.

Schlitz ( Splendors & Glooms) has crafted another exquisite literary gem, one told entirely via Joan’s vivid, humorous, and emotionally resonant diary entries over a year and a half. Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her sorcery to a Victorian gothic thriller an enthralling, darkly comic tale that would do Dickens proud. Desperate for the education her father denies her on their Pennsylvania farm, 14-year-old Joan runs away to Baltimore in 1911, where a well-to-do Jewish family hires her to help their obstinate, aging housekeeper.

Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz