Books for gifted children from Royal Fireworks Press, publishers for the gifted education curriculum.

Mildew On the Wall

Novel

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At one time, fifth grader Millie had a lovely bedroom, much larger than her friends, but over the last few years she had created apparent chaos in it. It became the room that she thought would guide her through her adolescence, the room that defined her identity. To the outside world, it was a mess; piles of clothing, old toys, forgotten books, discarded candy wrappers, dried out pens and pencils with worn points, covered the floor. Old posters barely hung on the walls, along with a two year old calendar. Dusty dolls sat on a dusty shelf. Her sheets and blankets had drifted to the floor. Millie simply could not bring herself to clean her room, no matter how her mother insisted. Finally, her allowance was cut off until the room was cleaned. But, rather than capitulate, Millie began to run secret guided tours to her room for the pre-teen set in her neighborhood for fifty-cents a head. Her first tours were advertised by word of mouth by the kids. Only her best friends had seen her room before, but it was already famous.

At school, Pamela Roberts, neat freak and teacherís pet, tormented Millie with pranks and coined the name of Mildew On The Wall. New girl in school Stella Marshall, gloomed onto Millie and her room, and led the way to greater schemes to exploit the mess, for a 50% cut. Carried away, Millie called a radio talk show during its Promotion Hour, and 'promoted' her room. The DJ thought it was great fun, and a huge crowd showed up on Saturday for a viewing. Bad things happened: damage was done to the house, an antique vase was stolen, and a reporter with photographer did a front-page story. With her cover blown, Millie was grounded for four weeks, and all of her profits were to be used to buy a new antique for mom.

Pamela maneuvered the end term class trip to Millie’s bedroom with a final plan to undermine Millie is growing popularity. The plan backfired, exposing Pamela, who eventually repented. A state of cease-fire began. Millie gained insight into her own and Pamela’s motivations, realizing that it has been her personality, not her room, that had made her unique, that in meeting some of society’s standards (cleaning her room up) so that people could respect her, she didn’t have to sacrifice her own essential uniqueness.

Mildew On The Wall is author Henshon’s first novel. She is insightful, witty, and outrageous in her messy exaggerations. Adolescent girls will relate to and enjoy this pre-teen romp.

Spiders On The Ceiling is the similarly subversive sequel.

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