“The cat sat on the old windowsill, as she had on and off for a hundred years.“

I was hooked.

Maddy, almost 12, has just had her life turned upside down. Her mother’s brand new husband forced them to move from their little house in Scarborough, Ontario, to “the middle of nowhere”: Colebrook, just outside Belleville, Ontario, and Maddy resents everything about it. Especially the man. Especially the new baby.

Recovering from a recent long illness and dealing with both asthma and allergies, Maddy follows a mysterious cat and finds a door that opens into the past. As she steps through into the hard times of a hundred years ago, she learns a lot about her own life and comes to see her family, and her place in it, through fresh eyes.

There are several things I appreciated about this book:

* It’s set in small-town Ontario and in Toronto.
* It features a heroine with a health issue and it demonstrates very compellingly the life-changing difference medical and social advantages have wrought in the past century.
* Set in 2001, it will also lead young readers to compare their own infrastructure and relationship to the Web with Maddy’s, which could be a good starting point for conversations.
* The way Maddy approaches coping with her asthma and allergies, and the descriptions of some other respiratory conditions afflicting other characters, would make a good springboard for conversations during these “extraordinary times”, when illness and cures is on everyone’s minds.

It’s refreshing to see a main character who is coping with a physical challenge and who lives an adventurous life.

And did I mention it’s an absolutely ripping yarn? Easy and quick to read, there is a satisfyingly large number of short chapters to encourage reluctant readers, and enough novel vocabulary to stimulate accomplished ones.

Those who enjoyed Janet Lunn’s The Root Cellar or loved Tom’s Midnight Garden as a child, will enjoy this book.

#TheGirlFromtheAttic #NetGalley


I was hooked from the first line-  "The cat sat on the old windowsill, as she had off and on for a hundred years."  I read this book in one sitting and loved it.

Maddy  has no interest in moving from the city, even if its into an octagonal house.

She resents her stepfather for "making" them move.
Her mother is going to have another baby and Maddy  resents Dan's requests for her to help mom out.

Shadow the cat appears and Maddys adventures begin.


I enjoyed Clare and Maddys friendship so very much, adored the glimpses of Shadow, and cheered for Maddy's growth in this delightfully entertaining book.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the complimentary e book in exchange for  my honest review

The Girl from the Attic is a middle grade novel that focuses on eleven year old Maddy, who finds a mysterious door in the attic of her new home that sends her tumbling back in time to the early 20th century.

Faced with problems in her own time, Maddy finds her trips to the 20th century cathartic and enjoys the time she spends there. However, she soon realises that she has to face up to her own problems and with the help of the past, she soon faces the future.

Though I found The Girl from the Attic  to be enjoyable in places and to have some wonderful life lessons, overall I found this novel to overly long for a middle grade.

This appealing book for middle grade readers captures the challenges of children in this age group-dealing with change; increased responsibilities; making and leaving friends. Readers will sympathize with Maddy as she moves back and forth in time all the while coping with her family’s move, accepting her stepfather, taking on new responsibilities and facing the consequences of her sometimes rash actions.  
A door into the past gives Maddy a chance to appreciate her family and to witness others’ hardships and will make this story of particular interest to readers who enjoy finding out about life for pioneers.
Maddy’s experiences in the present and the past build suspense.  As we’re reading, we wonder how Maddy will manage the increasing pressures of both her actions when she ventures into the past and her choices in the present.  There are big issues at play but Ms. Prints brings us to a satisfying conclusion with a feeling of connectedness of family and place.

Young Maddie, dragged to a new life in an odd, antique country house, finds a mysterious attic doorway and enters into the past. The Girl from the Attic is a thoughtful exploration of the family who lived in this house long ago, their way of life, their strength, their love and their sorrows, woven into the struggles of a modern girl coming to terms with changes in her own family. The classic delights of secret passages and magical time shifts are smoothly blended with present times and issues vivid to many young readers now. Maddie has a new step-father and a new baby sister on the way..
With compelling plot twists, past and present intertwine. The long-ago people she has come to love echo in Maddie's own "today"and help her find the way to her tomorrow.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the time travel and the historical aspects. I mostly loved all the things that tied the people from the past to Maddy's present.
I think this book touched on some difficult topics (such as an absent father and a premature birth), and I know this is a book I would have absolutely loved as a child.

✨Book Review✨
The Girl from the Attic is a very sweet coming of age novel for middle graders. Marie Prins weaves together the past and present with startling similarities, especially for young Maddy. 
.
When Maddy is forced to move into an old, octagonal, century home 100 kilometers away from her friends and grandfather, she is miserable. She feels like her stepfather hates her, and her mom doesn't have time for her anymore, now that she's pregnant with Maddy's little sister. And so, Maddy takes refuge in a loft above the old woodshed. You can imagine her surprise when an old magical door is revealed that transports her into what was once the attic of that old house, but 100 years in the past. She travels back and forth to help her new friend, and to escape her own troubles.
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I loved this book. It's such a sweet story, and Maddy's character feels very authentic. She's a little misguided at times, but what 11-year-old girl isn't? It's set in 2001, which is around the time I was her age, so I really enjoyed the old references to dial up internet and flip phones.

This was a fast read and interesting between books. The story was interesting and well written. Something I would recommend for children and adults alike if you want something a little different.

This book is unusual and compelling, and will appeal to readers of all ages! I enjoyed it very much indeed. I like the time hop element of it, and Mandy is a delightful character. The ending is extremely satisfying and stitches past and present together perfectly. Highly recommended.

This was a quick but enjoyable read reminding me of books I read in my childhood. It had a time travel element that added to the interest and I found myself caught up in the story. I would definitely purchase this for my library. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the early look at this book.

I really enjoyed this book, and think it will be a hit with MG readers. The main character, Maddy, has a coming-of-age experience that I think readers in this age group could really relate to. She has a new stepfather, whom she feels does not like her, and his decision to relocate her and her mother to the country adds to her unhappiness. The mysterious attic doorway transports her to an earlier era, and serves as a way for her to escape her own life and problems. Through her interactions with the home’s past residents, she gains a new perspective on her own life, and learns to be grateful for what she has. The book not only had a great lesson, but it also maintained suspense (When would Maddie be able to return to the past? Would Eva surprise? Why does her neighbor seem to know so much about her?) that kept me hooked until the end!

I thought that this book was well written. It had a strong moral message. The girl in the story skipped time by use a door in the house. A tad farfetched at times and I am not sure that it was totally believable. The main character had attitude and was not always very likeable. A good ending however, definitely interested to read more from this author.

Great historical read!  Love the insight into rural Canadian life at the turn of the century.  I also really appreciated that even though she had relocated from the city, Maddy was able to take lessons from the past and refocus her energy on empathy and the importance of family.  I love a good time travel element as well, it's always fun to escape into the unexpected!

I thoroughly enjoyed this time travel, historical novel for 8-12 year olds. It had a bit of everything in it.  
As Maddy Rose struggles to adjust to life with a step dad whose company she doesn't particularly enjoy, the pending arrival of a new sister, and her family's big life- changing move from Toronto to small town Ontario, many readers will identify with and/or be fascinated by what happens to her. At her new Octagonal house she discovers, with the help of a black cat with a white-tipped tail, a secret doorway that takes her to another time a hundred years ago.
The author's careful research illustrates for the young and older alike, what life was like in the late 19th century in Maddy's new hometown. There is a lot of drama and suspense in this story and I think it will keep readers enthralled right up until the surprise ending. The illustrations of the black cat are wonderful as are the detailed drawings of the house and other buildings involved in the plot.
I can't wait to share this book with my grandkids!

The Girl From the Attic
by Marie Prins
	
	Maddy knows the first time she sees the weird, octagonal house where her stepfather Dan intends to move the family that she will hate it. Her mother, Carla, had promised they would never move from the city. But everything changed when Dan the Man barged into their lives and began taking up her mother's time. Before long, they were married and now, with Carla pregnant, their house in Scarborough is suddenly too small.
	When they move to the octagonal house, far from from the city, Carla suggests the clean country air might be good for Maddy's asthma. Maddy's grandfather, Poppa George, knows the history of the unusual old house, built in 1853. He tells her that in the 1880s people believed octagonal houses had healing powers.
	Young readers, ages 8–12, will find this spellbinding book impossible to put down. They will find it easy to understand Maddy's resentment of Dan and his many unreasonable demands because the author has developed the characters in Maddy's family so fully.
	It is not long before Maddy learns the house harbours secrets of its own, and they are connected, somehow, with a black cat with a white tip on its tail. Whenever the cat appears, so too does a small door that Maddy discovers in the wall of the attic over the woodshed. 
	One day Maddy follows the cat up the ladder to the loft and through the little door. She finds herself in a room over the kitchen. Hearing voices, she peers through a grate in the floor and sees a family downstairs, gathering for a meal. It's her kitchen, but everything looks different, and it's definitey not her family. 
	Later, again following the cat, Shadow, Maddy takes the attic stairs down into that kitchen where she meets kind Aunt Ella. The old lady surprises Maddy when she tells her that she has been expecting her.  Aunt Ella has the gift of second sight; she sees things that other people do not, and she has been aware of Maddy for a while. Now Madddy realizes that she has gone back in time, back into Aunt Ella's world, one hundred years earlier. 
	Maddy finds herself drawn to the past. She meets Clare, a quiet lad, a little older than she is. Originally from Belleville where his mother and younger sister Eva still live, he is boarding with his Uncle Ray and Aunt Helen in the octagonal house. Clare tells Maddy that Eva is gravely ill with consumption. His mother is planing to take the girl to the States for The Cure. 
	Maddy and Clare become friends, and when Clare shows her his uncle's method of making soap that they sell in the town, Maddy has ideas of her own about helping him grow the business by using more modern methods. The author works the details on early soap-making into the story so seamlessly that the reader never feels she is getting a history lesson.
	A search of the Internet at the local library gives Maddy more information about consumption, known today as tuberculosis. She learns that TB needs long courses of antibiotics and, remembering her own supply of pills, Maddy is determined to give them to Clare in an attempt to save his sister. 
	Regardless of increasing worries over her mother's risky pregnancy and her stepfather's growing anger over Maddy's frequent disappearances and neglect of her chores, Maddy is unable to resist the pull of the past. But will Shadow appear and the little door be open? Can she get back in time for Clare to get the pills to Eva?

	Reviewed by Peggy Dymond Leavey

"Amy was right. Eggs and promises were meant to be broken."
First of all, I want to send my grateful thanks to @netgalley, Common Deer Press and the great author, Marie Prins.
This book is just great and it was really for me 😊. I was really interesting to read it. I took me longer time than I thought but it was as great as I wanted it to be. This book is about a young girl who moved with her family of her mother and her stepfather from the city to live in the countryside of Colebrook town. She was upset about this uprupt change in her life and honestly, she did not like her stepfather so much. One-day, she went to discover around the new house and she had found a small to the past and she would have a great journey between the past and the present during which she will learn about the past and about the present, her present, too.
 I want to think the writer for the great accuracy when she was describing the life in the Canadian countryside during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. The way she described the clothes, the buildings, the customs, the family life and everything. I do recommend this book.

The Girl From the Attic is a really adorable children fantasy. As I like reading middle grade books, the plot and the cover made me pick this one to read. It was an interesting, twisting and cute novel. I loved reading every page of it and the drawings made it even more special. 
I believe this book can give so much to children and adults as well through just opening a mysterious door. A story about a young girl, who finds new friends in a different time and learns so many things on her journey.

Thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The cover of the book has a mystic element to it, like something waiting down the corner, and picks an interest in the reader. The book has the layout of the house which is helpful to understand and imagine the events clearly.

The flow of the book is well paced in that there is no moment of dragging or repeating things over. We are introduced to Maddy and things happening in her life, entry of Dan in her life, change in her Mother's wellness, followed by change of place, and then to the mystery around the new house. Time travel and adolescence form the theme. How the adventures end up, whether they went as she planned them, or what were the surprise elements that makes Maddy accept changes in her life and adjust to them, forms the rest of the story.

The book ended up being too honest about the issues, and though it was acceptable in a way, I really felt pity for the girl as she was trying to be as helpful as possible, but sad, was constantly blamed for the mess-ups, while her efforts went unnoticed. Poppa George, Aunt Ella were the only ones who seemed understanding, even Clare came across as too grumpy to me. It felt like she was missed only during the chores, there was hardly any lovable exchanges between the mom and the daughter.

This was a very interesting story. I allowed my13 year old daughter to read it as well and she said “it’s a very interesting book. It has good plot twists. The story was fascinating and was a quick read” 
It was a very interesting look at time travel. 

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Girl from the Attic by Marie Prins is a wholesome and sweet tale best suited for audience who have just entered the adolescence. The narrative is good and the descriptions are very precise and helpful for imagination for the readers.
I liked the tale and the plot twists and the setting: the octagonal house.
And with illustrations this become a very good read