Zelah Green: Queen of Clean is the first of two novels for age 11+ to be published in 2009 by Egmont UK. See below for a short excerpt.
You can pre-order Zelah from amazon.co.uk if you click this link:
I got the inspiration for Zelah firstly from a signpost on the way down to Cornwall - Zelah is a small village on the road towards Penzance - and secondly from watching a documentary about adults with OCD which got me wondering how a child would cope with it. OCD in adults is widely talked about in the press - David Beckham's got it, as has Justin Timberlake - but kids with OCD as so often, get overlooked. As a writer of books for children I feel kind of compelled to write about the issues that are buried beneath our so-called perfect lives. 'Zelah Green' is actually a play upon a classic fairy tale. I took the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and rewrote it (radically) by setting it in a home for angsty children with behavioural problems who aren't so assured of a happy ending. One of these kids is Zelah Green.
************ STOP PRESS*************ZELAH GREEN: QUEEN OF CLEAN TO BE PUBLISHED ON MONDAY 5th JANUARY 2009!!
***************ZELAH GREEN ON LONGLIST FOR THE 2009 WATERSTONES PRIZE!!!!
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My name is Zelah Green and I’m a Cleanaholic.
I spend most of my life on Germ-Alert.
Germ-Alert is for when people forget to wash their hands and then try to touch me, or when they sneeze onto a tissue and throw it at the bin like they’re playing netball and then miss, or even worse, try to pass it to me. Germ-Alert also covers cats, dogs, un-flushed toilets, greasy metal poles on tube trains, computer keyboards, and mobile phones without covers on, people spitting, kissing or dribbling, coughing, or doing anything else with their horrid bodily fluids.
When I’m not on Germ-Alert, I’m on Dirt-Alert.
Dirt-Alert is for when people come into the house from the garden with bare feet and tread bits of worm and grass and earth around the house. Dirt-Alert also covers drifting bits of fluff, crumbs, grimy black fingernails, people sweating too much, rancid fat on the cooker, old butter wrappers, smears on plates and windows and layers of dust on windowsills.
Dirt-Alert is not as serious as Germ-Alert but it still takes up a lot of my time.
It’s a miracle I ever get to school....
(copyright Vanessa Curtis 2008)