A great new upper middle grade release from Marie Prins, The Girl from the Attic is a step back in time to early life in Canada in a unique home a long way from the city.

This book is great for anyone with a curiosity about life in early Canada and especially how paediatric illnesses were thought of and treated. It’s also a lovely look at what happens when a new family is formed and the challenges around uprooting and moving to a completely new community. 

Maddie’s mom has just gotten married and is expecting a child with her new husband. Not only that, but Maddie’s stepdad Dan has decided to move them out of the bustling city into “the middle of nowhere” to a very unique house in a quiet community. The house is so strange as every time a black cat shows up a door to the past opens in the attic allowing Maddie to walk through and experience life with the original owners of the octagon house. Marie Prins uses lots of description to ensure the reader has a full view of the changes in lifestyle from the 1900s to now obviously doing extensive research to ensure the descriptions are representative and accurate of settlers at the beginning of the last century. 

The characters are interesting and well thought out and readers will find the differences between life now and life when their great grandparents were growing up and living through adolescence very interesting. The Girl From the Attic will give them a keen appreciation for the technologies that make life easier now.

The Girl From the Attic is very much a story focused on settlers and their culture in early Upper Canada. I would say that if you are providing this story for readers please ensure your bookshelf reflects the diverse history of Canada and also provide stories that include not just stories of settlers but also stories of Indigenous peoples and Black people in Upper Canada and how their lives were affected by settlers, the challenges of illness and family expectation.