Behind the Attic Wall
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Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
At twelve, Maggie had been thrown out of more boarding schools than she cared to remember. "Impossible to handle," they said nasty, mean, disobedient, rebellious, thieving anything they could say to explain why she must be removed from the school.
Maggie was thin and pale, with shabby clothes and stringy hair, when she arrived at her new home. "It was a mistake to bring her here," said Maggie's great-aunts, whose huge stone house looked like another boarding school or a prison. But they took her in anyway. After all, aside from Uncle Morris, they were Maggie's only living relatives.
But from behind the closet door in the great and gloomy house, Maggie hears the faint whisperings, the beckoning voices. And in the forbidding house of her ancestors, Maggie finds magic...the kind that lets her, for the first time, love and be loved.
Reviews with the most likes.
It's been ages since I read this, but I remember being spellbound. The loneliness of Maggie really hit home with my younger self. I didn't get tossed round boarding schools or was sent to live with cold aunts, but I think every young teen goes through a bit of a lonely chunk growing up, no matter how many people are in their lives.
I loved the idea of Maggie having dolls that moved and spoke only for her. It was heartbreaking at times, imagining this little skin and bones girl crawling up into the attic to see her only true friends.
Beautifully written. The scene where she's riding to the house for the first time and gets sick; using her uncle's kerchief to wipe her mouth and not knowing what to do with it afterwards; I could imagine I was HER. The awkwardness of, do I hand it back? Do I hold it and let my hand stink of puke? Do I toss it out the window?
I recommend it for any young person (or anyone) that feels they're lost in a world that doesn't care to understand them.
