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Behind the Attic Wall
Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
About the author
Sylvia Cassedy
18 books45 followersAn American author of picture books, poetry, and fiction, the Brooklyn-born creative-writing teacher began her career with a few minor picture books, such as Little Chameleon (1966), but is best known today for her poetry and novels. Roomrimes (1987) and the posthumously published Zoomrimes: Poems about Things That Go (1993) were praised for their perceptiveness, humor, and unusual variety of poetic forms.
Cassedy's three novels, Behind the Attic Wall (1983), M.E. and Morton (1987), and Lucie Babbidge's House (1989) are all intricate, leisurely paced novels about troubled or difficult protagonists who gain self-esteem through the intervention of possibly magical characters.
The author's incisive characterizations, carefully wrought prose, and ambiguous endings made her a critics’ favorite.
Cassedy's early death cut short an extraordinary writing career that had yet to peak, and fans can only wonder about—and mourn the loss of—the novels that were yet to be.
Cassedy's three novels, Behind the Attic Wall (1983), M.E. and Morton (1987), and Lucie Babbidge's House (1989) are all intricate, leisurely paced novels about troubled or difficult protagonists who gain self-esteem through the intervention of possibly magical characters.
The author's incisive characterizations, carefully wrought prose, and ambiguous endings made her a critics’ favorite.
Cassedy's early death cut short an extraordinary writing career that had yet to peak, and fans can only wonder about—and mourn the loss of—the novels that were yet to be.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 6, 2026
I read and loved this book as a child. It belonged to my sister, and I stole it off her shelves a few times. We're both now adults. She recently found a copy in a thrift shop, so I got to reread it for the first time in at least thirty years.
It holds up!
Maggie is an orphan, bitter, unhappy, unloved. She's been thrown out of a myriad of boarding schools and is finally sent to live with two old great-aunts. Her only other family is an uncle (it is not clarified his relation to the aunts, but implied he's of their generation) in their old, defunct boarding school.
Maggie steals things. She's unpleasant. She sucks her hair and doesn't eat. She expects rejection, so she invites it before initial kindness can turn on her. She is dismissive to even her imaginary friends. Unhappy at the day school near her aunts' house, disliked by her aunts (they see her as a project for their belief in some variant of better living through better eating and moral forthrightness, not as a person who has been deeply traumatized by loss), she begins to hear voices in the walls. And one day, those voices summon her.
She finds a hidden door that leads to a staircase to the attic. And in the attic she finds two dolls. Dolls that move and talk, dolls whose way of speaking is kind, and nonsensical. Dolls only she, and perhaps Uncle Morris, can hear.
It doesn't last. She is found out by her aunts, and the dolls stop moving. She finds out that the dolls are porcelain incarnations of the original headmaster and headmistress of the school she calls home, her ancestors, who died in a fire on the school grounds. Uncle Morris dies. Her aunts decide that Maggie can't be salvaged by nourishment and good posture and send her away. But before she leaves, to be taken in by a family who will love her and whom she will grow to love, the dolls reawaken, joined by a new one, Uncle Morris.
It's a strange little book. In the midst of current discourse on didacticism in children's literature, I can't help thinking that this book would not be published today. Maggie is a deeply flawed protagonist. She IS a thief. She does behave poorly, she's a bad student. But though it is not much developed, the damage done to her by the death of her parents and a string of indifferent caretakers is implied.
The dolls are also strange characters that probably wouldn't meet with approval from those who want kids' reading to give them moral fiber. They, like Uncle Morris, don't respond logically or even legibly to questions. They tell Maggie fanciful things. They don't punish her for her anger (and in her anger, she breaks them, something else that feels like a daring choice today). And, of course, they're ultimately ghosts who died horribly.
The ending is heavily telegraphed, but in a way I think I missed as a child. But Uncle Morris was clearly always going to be the "third" that the dolls were waiting for. He speaks like the dolls do: in circles, illogically. He is kind to Maggie when no one else is.
There is a happy ending, presented in interludes from the very start of the book. The family Maggie goes to becomes her family, her siblings, her parents. But even though I suspect this is there so the reader knows that Maggie's life isn't defined by the misery it is when we meet her, the dolls are alluded to as a mystery, a secret. There is no saccharine sweetness here. The book is not comfortable. Its language and prose are lovely - approachable for a young reader, but sophisticated. But it's designed to unsettle, even in its happier ending.
I loved this book as a child, and I suspect that colors my opinion of it now. But I've certainly revisited some childhood favorites that didn't hold up nearly this well. My sister tells me that Sylvia Cassedy has some other books, but that she died relatively young. What a shame, because this is a book I'll be happy for my children to read.
It holds up!
Maggie is an orphan, bitter, unhappy, unloved. She's been thrown out of a myriad of boarding schools and is finally sent to live with two old great-aunts. Her only other family is an uncle (it is not clarified his relation to the aunts, but implied he's of their generation) in their old, defunct boarding school.
Maggie steals things. She's unpleasant. She sucks her hair and doesn't eat. She expects rejection, so she invites it before initial kindness can turn on her. She is dismissive to even her imaginary friends. Unhappy at the day school near her aunts' house, disliked by her aunts (they see her as a project for their belief in some variant of better living through better eating and moral forthrightness, not as a person who has been deeply traumatized by loss), she begins to hear voices in the walls. And one day, those voices summon her.
She finds a hidden door that leads to a staircase to the attic. And in the attic she finds two dolls. Dolls that move and talk, dolls whose way of speaking is kind, and nonsensical. Dolls only she, and perhaps Uncle Morris, can hear.
It doesn't last. She is found out by her aunts, and the dolls stop moving. She finds out that the dolls are porcelain incarnations of the original headmaster and headmistress of the school she calls home, her ancestors, who died in a fire on the school grounds. Uncle Morris dies. Her aunts decide that Maggie can't be salvaged by nourishment and good posture and send her away. But before she leaves, to be taken in by a family who will love her and whom she will grow to love, the dolls reawaken, joined by a new one, Uncle Morris.
It's a strange little book. In the midst of current discourse on didacticism in children's literature, I can't help thinking that this book would not be published today. Maggie is a deeply flawed protagonist. She IS a thief. She does behave poorly, she's a bad student. But though it is not much developed, the damage done to her by the death of her parents and a string of indifferent caretakers is implied.
The dolls are also strange characters that probably wouldn't meet with approval from those who want kids' reading to give them moral fiber. They, like Uncle Morris, don't respond logically or even legibly to questions. They tell Maggie fanciful things. They don't punish her for her anger (and in her anger, she breaks them, something else that feels like a daring choice today). And, of course, they're ultimately ghosts who died horribly.
The ending is heavily telegraphed, but in a way I think I missed as a child. But Uncle Morris was clearly always going to be the "third" that the dolls were waiting for. He speaks like the dolls do: in circles, illogically. He is kind to Maggie when no one else is.
There is a happy ending, presented in interludes from the very start of the book. The family Maggie goes to becomes her family, her siblings, her parents. But even though I suspect this is there so the reader knows that Maggie's life isn't defined by the misery it is when we meet her, the dolls are alluded to as a mystery, a secret. There is no saccharine sweetness here. The book is not comfortable. Its language and prose are lovely - approachable for a young reader, but sophisticated. But it's designed to unsettle, even in its happier ending.
I loved this book as a child, and I suspect that colors my opinion of it now. But I've certainly revisited some childhood favorites that didn't hold up nearly this well. My sister tells me that Sylvia Cassedy has some other books, but that she died relatively young. What a shame, because this is a book I'll be happy for my children to read.
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September 27, 2024Error. Please see other copy of this book on my shelves. The cover on this one was more vibrant but all the reviews are there.
November 1, 2025
Funny. Quaint. Weird. Interesting. A little slow moving but enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews