Customer Reviews

A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama

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Some authors excel at first-sentence fabulousness. Laura Amy Schlitz is no exception. "On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing, The Battle Hymn of the Republic." So begins what could well be one of the smartest conceits for a book I've read in a very long time. To my mind, the best children's books are the ones that set up mysterious, possibly otherworldly, potential and then slip into reality without losing any of their magic. "The Secret Garden", by Frances Hodgson Burnett might be a good example of this. So too is, "A Drowned Maiden's Hair". Telling a tale that makes use of early 20th century beliefs and cons, the title grabs the reader by the throat on page one and doesn't let go for the entirety of the reading. And the ending? The most satisfying I've read in years. You poor readers who haven't perused it yet. You have my deep and abiding pity.

Someone has adopted Maud Flynn and no one is more amazed than the girl in question. I mean, the day was no different from any other to begin with. Maud was locked in the outhouse for being disruptive (again) and then this beautiful old woman appeared out of the blue and just adopted her! The woman's name is Hyacinth Hawthorne and she and her two sisters have taken Maud into their home for a very specific purpose. It turns out that the Hawthorne sisters are con artists who pose as spiritualists for the rich and unhappy. Want to contact your dear departed wife before you rewed? Call on Hyacinth. At the moment the sisters are desperate for money and they see Maud as their ticket to freedom. An extremely rich woman, one Mrs. Lambert, has offered a huge sum of cash if anyone can successfully contact her dead child. Maud's role? To play that child. She cannot exit the house. She cannot play with other children. She must be good at all times. But as much as Maud wants to please her caretakers, she unexpectedly finds herself befriending Mrs. Lambert, seeing the dead girl she's to impersonate in her dreams, and discovering that her new family may not love her even one little bit. She's just a kid, but she's about to face some tough choices.

I have received a note from someone asking that I not give away any of the plot of this book in this review. I do not personally believe that this review reveals too much or even describes some of the more mysterious actions taken by the author, but for those of you who prefer surprises, you may wish to stop reading as this point.

One prejudice against children's book I've heard is that the black and white of take on what is good and what is bad is part of the literary package. Some people seem to believe that subtlety and writing for kids are two elements that do not mix. Nothing could be farther from the truth and Ms. Schlitz is a living example. There are many people in this book that do morally questionable things. The Hawthorne sisters are three very different people, but all three have compromised their morals (it wasn't hard in Hyacinth's case) to take advantage of people's pain for cash. Those that actively participate (Hyacinth and Judith) and those that don't (Victoria) are all doing something wrong, but what they do varies. As such, Schlitz is able to write characters that are evil for what they do do and for what they fail to do (i.e. remove Maud from this dangerous situation). Weak-willed people who have the power to stop something bad and don't are just as blameworthy as those people who inflict that same harm. At the same time, you sympathize with poor Victoria and even, to some extent, Judith.

My vote for best villain in a children's book this year? Hyacinth Hawthorne. A person can rarely say they've met a one-of-a-kind bad guy in a children's book, but I think Ms. Hawthorne takes the cake. First of all, you rarely meet an elderly flirt. Here's how she's described in the book, ". . . her hair was white, and her skin was lined. At second glance, Maud's disappointment was less acute. The stranger was erect and dainty, like an elderly fairy." Hyacinth easily seduces Maud into loving her right from the start, but their relationship is completely one-sided. Even if Hyacinth seems to be playing dress-up with Maud it turns out later that she's just priming her for her performance in the séances. Schlitz even manages to have her villain say, "Who would have thought the child had so much blood in her?', invoking Lady MacBeth without being any too blatant about it. To read that line and understand it is to feel the shivers ah-running down your spine.

All around the characters in this book are top notch. Maud Flynn is completely believable as a love-starved but plucky gal. She's not against rebelling once in a while, and it's her spirit that keeps her from ever watering down into some wishy-washy heroine. I would be amiss in not mentioning the character of Muffet as well. When Maud learns that there is little love to be gleaned from her guardians, Muffet the housekeeper becomes her closest friend. Muffet is deaf and, by many standards, unattractive. Her name is one of Hyacinth's cruel little jokes, as the woman's real name was Anna and she's desperately afraid of spiders. Her story of learning to read and write is magnificent, and she becomes one of the book's truer heroes.

Now there are few things better than picking up a book and finding that the author you are reading has the ability to place you directly in the shoes of the character you sympathize the most with. When Hyacinth slaps Maud's hand for saying "ghosts" instead of "spirits" the shock of the action is palpable. Maud forgives Hyacinth, of course, but the reader is put on edge from there on in. Ms. Schlitz is just as comfortable invoking descriptions of the world around her relatively innocent heroine. How do you describe a child seeing waves for the first time? "Farther out to sea, they weren't waves at all, only mounds, like furrows in a field. Then, somehow, each mound rose to an edge, thin as the blade of a knife. The knife-edge tilted, the wave coiled, and there was a moment when it seemed as if it must break - and yet it did not. Then a lines of brightness, cooked and notched like paper catching fire, rippled across the top edge of the wave. The water crashed and erupted, droplets spurting straight up and leapfrogging off the surface of the foam." Boo-yah! THAT is what I'm talking about people. THAT is writing worth handing to your children. Now go do so.

It seems to me that the spiritualism movement was always ripe for the plucking, children's literature-wise. Yet I can't think of a single title, fiction or non-fiction, that has mentioned it to the extent of "A Drowned Maiden's Hair". Credit Laura Amy Schlitz with cleverly seeing an opportunity like this and taking it. It's interesting enough to keep kids reading all of its 389 pages, and smart enough to teach `em a little something along the way. Best of all? It's fun. It's a fun read and though I won't tell you the ending I will say that few children's books elicit the same sigh of relief as this book does. A magnificent addition to collections everywhere.

I was surprised when I read A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz. I read the blurb about it and it didn't sound at all what like something I'd normally enjoy reading. Really the only thing that made me start reading it in the first place was its title, which managed to make me wonder just what it could imply. After I read a few pages in the bookshop I wouldn't take my eyes away from it. It amazed me how well written it was for I have only seen a few well written books that appealed to my age group. The story may seem at first like the average orphan-adopted-by-strange-family plot that you hear everyday but it soon twists into a finely woven tale of ghosts and deceit. Maud Flynn, The main character, is very relatable. She is selfish, stubborn, and very human, which is sometimes hard to find in a story character. You can't help but like her because of this humanity. I would recommend this book to all the people who are sick of cookie-cutter fiction and who like a nice suspenseful plot.

By Hailey Prescott


On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Maud was a troublemaker and she was used to this kind of punishment. She was an orphan since she was a little girl. Now as an eleven year old, Maud goes on an adventure of love and trust. That morning, Maud was adopted.
The Hawthorn sisters would be Maud's new family: Judith, Victoria and Hyacinth. Maud immediately fell for Hyacinth and wanted Hyacinth to love her back as much as she loved her. But as most books go, nothing goes right. When Maud calls Hyacinth her dearest, Hyacinth just laughs at her, breaking Maud's little heart. Plus, the sisters were just using her for their secret family business, not for love.
This book was amazing, fit for all ages. I would give A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz 4 of 5 stars. It always kept me questioning what would happen next and made me feel as if I were actually there in the book myself. Another book that is similar to A Drowned Maiden's Hair with the amount of suspense is Hidden Talents by David Lubar. I loved that book also. It was a great story.
I was really lucky to find this book; it was full of adventure and mystery. Ultimately it was a remarkably great story. This books shows that everyone should be treated the same, no matter the motive or background. We are all living things, not some old toy that you play with and then throw to the side when you are done.

Laura Schlitz's story of Maud, the least well behaved child at the Barbary Female Orphans asylum, reads like a classic Edwardian orphan story. Like Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Little Princess, the story has a moral center in the psychological dilemmas of childhood, which resonate with those of adult life. The telling is limpidly clear, supported by vivid period detail, and utterly absorbing. Like Harry Potter, the most famous orphan hero of the present, Maud has a rich and real life, in which loneliness, loyalty, affection, confusion and despair all vie for a central place. Reading this as an adult, I fell into the story the way I shivered in Sarah Crewe's attic and trembled in the maze that lured Harry out of Hogwarts. A great children's book opens children's eyes about the adult world, while reminding adults of what it feels like to be a child. This is one such and I commend it to anyone who has befriended a lonely orphan--on paper or in life--and been enriched by the experience.

This story is abour Maud Flynn, a rebelious little orphan who is rescued from an orphanage by Hyacinth, a charming lady, who, for some reason, wants a "secret child". Little Maud is desperate for love and eager to please, but things are not quite right.

I may be damning this with faint praise, but this was a lot better than much of the other "children's literature" I have read lately, particularly certain horrible Newbery winners. The writing flows smoothly, and it is not boring. It has a reasonably sympathetic child heroine, and includes some fairly colorful happenings. The period atmosphere worked well for me, and I had only minor issues with plausibility.

The story loses a little steam after a while. The reader soon figures out what is going on, and, after that, the remaining mysteries are not quite so intriguing. The story also spends far too much time on a pair of completely useless characters who hang about wringing their hands and getting in the way of the story, and whose only purpose, it seems, is to serve as a mouthpiece for certain [***] ideas which the author seems to want to promote. Nonetheless, I was never tempted to put it down.

Maud, like all the characters, is a fully realized human, full of contradictions and imperfections--and all the more loveable for it. I disagree with calling this a "melodrama": there is no mustache-twirling villain, and, instead, the action in this unique, highly imaginative and original story is entirely character-driven. What happens (and it's highly entertaining and emotionally gripping) feels inevitable because of who these characters are. I found it completely absorbing (and stayed up way, way later than I should have!) and believed and lived in every word.

This is a book of fully realized characters, beautifully simple language, vivid historical details, and a refreshing, believable plot.

The amazing thing is that it's actually quite an old plotline, at least superficially: Will the plucky orphan find happiness? (I guess that's why she called it a Melodrama.) But what the author does with the old story is wonderful. In the first few scenes, where the reader knows Maud is being used but she doesn't, the tension makes you keep reading because while you know there's something not right about her guardians, it's not clear what. By the time we know what the unethical plan the grown ups have for the little girl, we are invested in finding out what happens to her. Great pacing.

From the first scene, wherein Maud is being punished by being locked in the outhouse in the cold and sings to keep herself warm and her defiance intact, I loved the spirited, flawed heroine. And the supporting characters are complex in a way worthy of Dickens. Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? If they do bad things for good reasons are they still bad?

Sorry to gush, but it's been years since I've been this excited about a book at this reading level. (Appropriate, I think, for 4th or 5th grade and up but with nuances that will keep adults interested.)

Schlitz, Laura Amy. (2006). A Drowned Maiden's Hair. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.


The year is 1909 and young orphan Maud Flynn has to learn the difference between right and wrong in the most unusual way. The Hawthorne sisters sweep her away from the horrible Barbary Asylum, where is she often punished by being put in a dark outhouse for hours. Hyacinth, Victoria, and Judith are three older women who tell Maud that she will be participating in their "secret work" and must be kept hidden from the public's eye. Maud is too overwhelmed with the good food, new clothes, and attention, to question the sisters' motives. Soon she learns that she will be an actor in the sisters' fake séances, which they held for wealthy patrons to make money.
Maud struggles with her conscience in this endeavor, especially after making a connection with one woman customer, whose deceased daughter was right around Maud's age. It was easy to feel sympathy for Maud and follow the roller coaster events that seemed to happen to her in this novel. It was a common story of a young orphan's desire to fit in and find a place to call home, with an unusual setting and circumstance, which made the book captivating. I kept reading always wanting to find out what was going to happen to Maud. Her relationship with the sisters' deaf and mute servant, Muffet, provided a fresh insight to Maud's personality and her discovery of what it really meant to be loved.
While Maud's character was well developed, and the changes she went through throughout the story were quite evident, I would have liked to see more of the sisters' characters developed. We know quite a bit about Hyacinth, the ringleader of the séances, but Victoria and Judith remain somewhat of a mystery.
I would recommend this book to any reader who is looking for a unique plot, probably ranging from upper fourth grade to sixth grade levels. I am hesitant to suggest it for use in schools however, due to the sensitive nature of the topic of séances and contacting the dead. I could foresee some parents having a problem with their children being exposed to material that dealt with those issues.

One test of a good book is that you find your mind keeps wandering back to it. This has been true with A Drowned Maiden's Hair for me. With each reenvisioning, I am more satisfied, and now consider this book to be a little gem.

As a teacher, I am always looking for a book that will not only appeal to my "you-need-to-keep-me-constantly-entertained" 4-6 graders, but also allows me to teach a historical, or better yet, moral lesson. I really loved how with the three sisters who adopted the saucy orphan Maud, you get quite a range of morality to discuss with students. The author does such a poignant job having Maud navigate this world of newly discovered complexities.

Using the Spiritualism movement of the early 20th century as a setting and plot device was original and fascinating. Students of this age are often mesmerized by the escape artist Houdini. However, many of them don't know that Houdini was dedicated to debunking the practices of Spiritualists during his life. I am excited about the prospects of using this novel as a highly entertaining vehicle to teach a multitude of lessons - not only based on the content, but also based on the writer's style being one to emulate.

My only complaint was I did feel the ending was a bit predictable - yet I didn't want it to end any other way.

The final analysis, I will most definitely be reading more by Laura Amy Schlitz as will my students.

I love, love, love this book. The writing is fantastic, the pace is pitch-perfect, the characters are complex, the storyline is engaging, and there is a plot turn in the latter pages of the book that I did NOT expect! Warming all these elements like a cozy blanket over cool skin is how adeptly Laura Amy Schlitz draws you in to the atmosphere of the turn-of-the-20th-century setting.

Not to be too silly about it, but the storyline could be roughly explained as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels meets Oliver Twist meets Arsenic and Old Lace. There is a great con taking place at a wealthy seaside resort, a poor, yet spunky orphan (only she's not a boy - she's 11 year old Maud Mary Flynn), and spinster sisters who sometimes seem to mean well, but have a funny way of showing it.

It's character-driven, thought-provoking, and unwaveringly clean fun.

I also applaud the sincerity of this book. The characters are not one-trick ponies - you alternately like them or don't, think they're clever or cruel. There's an honest look at each of their strengths and weaknesses, and also the integrity of their motives. In short, I think there's a lot of heart in these pages, along with a crisp, original story.