History Literature / BehindTheAtticWall

%%* TheChosenOne: Maggie, to the dolls.

%%* GoToYourRoom: Harriet and Lillian's favorite punishment
%%* HappilyAdopted: [[spoiler:Maggie at the end of the story]]

%%* TheMagicGoesAway: [[spoiler: Or so we think.]]

* TheChosenOne: Maggie, to the dolls.
* CloudCuckooLander: Uncle Morris plays silly word games and takes everything so lightly that even Maggie becomes infuriated with his ability to never answer a straight question--especially when she suspects he knows more than he's telling her.

* FollowTheLeader: Takes a lot after ''Literature/TheSecretGarden'', only with talking dolls instead of a magic garden.
* GoToYourRoom: Harriet and Lillian's favorite punishment
* [[spoiler: HappilyAdopted: Maggie at the end of the story]]
* HeroesLoveDogs: Timothy John and Miss Christabel's dog Juniper.

* TheMagicGoesAway: [[spoiler: Or so we think.]]

Troubled twelve-year-old Maggie Turner has been thrown out of more [[BoardingSchool boarding schools]] and [[FosterKid foster homes]] than she can remember--and for good reason: she steals and destroys other people's property; she skips class to play in the garden or rummage through other people's rooms; she never pays attention to anyone, lost in her own strange thoughts; she's ugly and skinny, she sucks her hair, and she wears her own ragged ill-fitting clothes rather than the uniforms provided. Underneath it all, Maggie has been alone so long that she's come to believe she prefers it, and she refused to risk being hurt by letting another person into her own interior world.

* CloudCuckooLander: Uncle Morris plays silly word games and takes everything so lightly that even Maggie becomes infuriated with his ability to never answer a straight questions--especially when she suspects he knows more than he's telling her.

* SourOutsideSadInside: Maggie is a sullen brat who's been abandoned and relocated so many times that she's desperately lonely, but too afraid of losing yet another person that she's afraid to reach out.

* NotGoodWithPeople: Maggie's learned to act as off-putting as she can in order to reject people before they can reject her.

[[OldDarkHouse Adelphi Hills]] is Maggie's last chance. There she lives with her only living relatives, [[GoodIsNotSoft two stern great-aunts]] and [[CloudCuckooLander a dreamy, childlike uncle]]. There she wanders the empty halls and abandoned classrooms of what was once a girls' school, until a tragic accident 100 years ago killed the school's founders. And there she hears [[CallToAdventure mysterious voices calling her name]] from a secret room [[TitleDrop behind the attic wall]].

* ComingOfAgeStory

* DefrostingIceQueen: Maggie

* HeroesLoveDogs: Timothy John and Miss Christabel's dog Juniper

What she discovers there seems like a pair of ordinary forgotten dolls--but these dolls can walk and talk. For the dolls, it is eternally 4 o'clock on a Wednesday, just before teatime. To them, Maggie is their new caretaker, come to tend their paper rose garden and pour their imaginary tea. But to Maggie, the dolls will soon become the most important things in her world...and they will teach her [[ThePowerOfLove the most important lesson of her life]].

What she discovers there seems like a pair of ordinary forgotten dolls--but these dolls can walk and talk. For the dolls, it is eternally 4 o'clock on a Thursday, just before teatime. To them, Maggie is their new caretaker, come to tend their paper rose garden and pour their imaginary tea. But to Maggie, the dolls will soon become the most important things in her world...and they will teach her [[ThePowerOfLove the most important lesson of her life]].

Troubled twelve-year-old Maggie Turner has been thrown out of more [[BoardingSchool boarding schools]] and [[FosterKid foster homes]] than she can remember--and for good reason: she steals and destroys other people's property; she skips class to play in the garden or rummage through other people's room; she never pays attention to anyone, lost in her own strange thoughts; she's ugly and skinny, she sucks her hair, and she wears her own ragged ill-fitting clothes rather than the uniforms provided. Underneath it all, Maggie has been alone so long that she's come to believe she prefers it, and she refused to risk being hurt by letting another person into her own interior world.

Troubled twelve-year-old Maggie Turner has been thrown out of more [[BoardingSchool boarding schools]] and [[FosterKid foster homes]] than she can remember before she's sent to [[OldDarkHouse Adelphi Hills]] to live with her [[GoodIsNotSoft stern aunts]] and [[CloudCuckooLander silly uncle]]. Maggie refuses to give anyone or anything a chance until she begins to hear voices...[[CallToAdventure voices calling to her]] from a secret spot behind the attic. What she discovers there seems like a couple of ordinary dolls who soon become the most important things in her world...and who teach her [[ThePowerOfLove the most important lesson of her life]].

* TheChosenOne: Maggie, to the dolls
* CloudCuckooLander: Uncle Morris plays silly word games and takes every thing so lightly that even Maggie becomes infuriated with his ability to never answer a straight questions--especially when she suspects he knows more than he's telling her.

* NotGoodWithPeople: Maggie

* PetTheDog: Harriet and Lillian give Maggie a baby doll to play with in the beginning, then later on treat her more gently after [[spoiler: Uncle Morris dies]], despite being enraged with her.

* JerkassWoobie: By the time we meet her, Maggie has been lonely for so long that she's convinced herself that she prefers it. Subsequently she lies, steals, destroys property, maintains poor hygiene, wears dirty, ill-fitting clothes, and is overall a sullen, unpleasant, off-putting brat--all so that no one will get close enough to disappoint her by abandoning her again.

* BeautyEqualGoodness: Deconstructed. The girls in Maggie's new school are all beautiful, and all of them hate her (largely because she stole from them on her first day of class). Yet as Maggie learns to love and trust again, people note a marked improvement in her physical appearance: she gains weight, her face is rosy, and her hair is no longer lank and oily. By the end, some of the pretty classmates have tentatively struck up friendships, and at least one is genuinely disappointed when Maggie leaves the school.

''Behind the Attic Wall'' is a children's mystery novel written by Sylvia Cassedy in 1983. Troubled twelve-year-old Maggie Turner has been thrown out of more boarding schools and foster homes than she can remember before she's sent to Adelphi Hills to live with her stern aunts and silly uncle. Maggie refuses to give anyone or anything a chance until she begins to hear voices...voices calling to her from a secret spot behind the attic. What she discovers there seems like a couple of ordinary dolls who soon become the best and only friends she's ever had.

* CloudCuckooLander: Uncle Morris

* FollowTheLeader: Takes a lot after ''TheSecretGarden'', only with talking dolls instead of a magic garden.

* MoralEventHorizen: In-universe, the aunts believe Maggie has crossed this by stealing a china ballerina to give the dolls as a present, cutting up a silk scarf for party decorations and accidentally causing a small fire in that spot behind the attic. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And she skipped their party to have the doll party, too!]]

* NotGoodWithPeople: Maggie