Another great new review of 'Zelah Green: One More Little Problem'! from 'Mile Long Bookshelf' on the net..
I love this cover! I love how you can only see some of the girl (supposedly Zelah) and the way the yellow stands out against the grey makes the cover look quite elegant, whilst still being an enjoyable read.
I was gripped from page one (I actually was, I am NOT exaggerating!), Vanessa Curtis is such a fantastic writer.
This novel is actually very inspiring and it's one of those novels that makes you think. The main character, Zelah, has OCD which stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder where you want everything neat and tidy and you hate germs and dirt. Everything has to be perfect. It really made me think about how hard it must be, if you have it, and how hard it must be for the people living with you. This novel will make readers more aware of the disorder, which is good.
My favourite character was Zelah (yeah I know, she's the main character, I shouldn't pick her...but she is genuinely my favourite character!) because she seemed really confident and she wasn't annoying; sometimes I felt sorry for her. It was very hard to decide whether my favourite character was Zelah or Fran...Fran (Zelah's ex-best friend) is very funny, but also quite a snob and I didn't really like the way she treated Zelah. She was funny though, so she's my second-favourite character.
Overall I found NO faults with this novel. I recommend this book to readers aged 11+ and I give this a rating of 5/5! I loved it and I'm so glad I got a chance to read this wonderful book.
Thank you soooo much to Egmont for sending this to me to review!
Official Publication Date: April 2009
Notes: This novel was first published in 2009 as Zelah Green Dating Queen but was then republished with a new cover and new title Zelah Green: One More Little Problem.
NEW REVIEW OF 'ZELAH GREEN: ONE MORE LITTLE PROBLEM' courtesy of the good people at Bookbag:
We first met Zelah
when her OCD got so bad she was sent off to a live-in centre for
treatment. She's at home now, with the OCD still around but not totally
debilitating. She's still jumping on the stairs - but not so many jumps
and not so often. She's still scrubbing her face, but it isn't quite red
raw. You'd call her overly fastidious rather than ill. And her
therapist is pleased with her progress. But then...
... stepmother Heather goes off on a business trip, drink gets
the better of Dad again, and Caro - the self-harming, Marilyn
Manson-loving rebel from Forest Hill - turns up and shows no sign of
going home again, and jeopardises Zelah's gradual rapprochement with
ex-best friend Fran. And Zelah does her best to cope, she really does.
But it's going to take a great deal of step jumping and face-scrubbing
to manage.
I loved Zelah first time around and I loved her again in this
second story about her. Curtis has a tremendously light touch, so
readers get a blend of tween romcom and issue-based fiction. Zelah
herself is a wonderfully sympathetic character. She has a great deal of
self-knowledge and talks about her OCD with wry humour so when readers
laugh it's with her, not at her. And as they see how involuntary her
condition is, and how it gets worse as the stress in her life increases,
they'll gain a real understanding of life in someone else's shoes.
Better still, there's a slightly subversive element to the story -
the adults in Zelah's life do tend to her let her down. Her father
thinks of himself, not of his daughter. Her stepmother goes away, even
though she's perfectly well aware of Zelah's fragility and Dad's
flakiness. And Fran's snobby mother doesn't want her precious daughter
associating with a "weirdo". Ultimately, it's down to vulnerable Zelah
to sort herself out, and the only real help she gets is from the equally
vulnerable Caro and Fran, another peer. I quite like stories in which
the children are nicer people than the adults. It reminds me of Roald
Dahl.
It's funny and sweet but serious too, and comes wholeheartedly
recommended for late tween and early teen girls.
My thanks to the good people at Egmont for sending the book.
You can read more book reviews
and buy Zelah Green: One More Little Problem by Vanessa Curtis at Amazon
and Waterstones
MARCH 2010 - Zelah won the Manchester Children's Book Awards!
JANUARY 2010 - 'Zelah Green: Queen of Clean' has been longlisted for the Branford Boase Awards 2010 - these awards honour a debut author of children's fiction in the UK.
DECEMBER 2009 - 'Zelah Green: Queen of Clean' has been shortlisted for the Manchester Children's Book Awards 2010, one of six shortlisted books. 'Zelah' has also been longlisted for the Lancashire Book Awards 2010 and the Warwickshire Book Awards 2010 and shortlisted for the Bolton Book Awards 2010!
AUGUST 2009 - 'Zelah Green:Queen of Clean' has been shortlisted for the Nasen/TES Children's Book Award to a list of three. Julia Donaldson eventually took the award. A great evening was had by all!
July 2009 -' Zelah Green: Queen of Clean' has been longlisted for the Manchester Children's Book Award!
May 2009- Zelah Green is now out and on sale in Poland (published by Nasza Ksiegarnia ).
April 2009 - the cover to 'Zelah Green: Dating Queen' will be revealed over the next few weeks and posted on here! I've seen it - it's red, gorgeous and lovely!
January 12 2009 - ZELAH GREEN IS ON THE SHORTLIST FOR THE 2009 WATERSTONES CHILDREN'S BOOK PRIZE
News...
ZELAH GREEN: QUEEN OF CLEAN is NOW PUBLISHED AND IN THE SHOPS!
More News...July 2008
Zelah Green is on the Longlist for the 2009 Waterstones Children's Book Prize
Even more news....26th September 2008
Zelah Green: Queen of Clean' has just been sold to publisher Nasza Ksiegarnia in Poland and will be published during 2009.
Review from Scotland on Sunday, Feb 8th 2009:
Review by JANET CHRISTIE
MISERY memoirs are big business and it seems there's nothing some people like more than reading about others' tortured lives. Add to this your average self-obsessed adolescent's propensity for wallowing in their own angst and it follows that a trauma tome for teens sounds like a match made on Bebo during double computing studies.
Having approached this tale of a teenager suffering obsessive compulsive disorder with the trepidation of a parent knocking on the door of a huffy teenager, I was relieved to find Vanessa Curtis exploring the subject matter with humour and empathy.
With biographies on Virginia Woolf under her belt, this is Curtis' first novel for children and she plots a steady course through the misery minefield to produce a book that deserves its place on this year's Waterstone's Children's Book Prize longlist.
With her light touch, convincing dialogue and sparky humour, she makes self-harm, anorexia, attempted suicide, depression, cancer and alcoholism all palatable for a young audience without being patronising or employing self-improvement gobbledygook. She also makes it funny.
Zelah is a teenage cleanaholic whose tidy room and scrupulous personal hygiene might make her sound like a dream child, but factor in the rituals - jumping 128 times on the top step, spacing her clothes 10cm apart and constant hand-washing for starters - and you almost start to sympathise with her wicked stepmother.
With her mother dead and her dad disappeared, Zelah takes refuge in the cleaning routines that have taken over her life. Dispatched to a home for disturbed teenagers she finds herself among a gang of youngsters being counselled for a range of disorders and trauma. There is Sol who won't speak, Alice who won't eat, Caro who self-harms and suicidal Lib, all struggling to cope with what life has thrown at them.
Through reaching out to them and talking with counsellors at the home, Zelah starts to deal with her suppressed grief and takes the first tentative steps on her road to recovery. Her adventures continue in the sequel, Zelah Green, Dating Queen, due out next year.
SOME EARLY REVIEWS OF 'Zelah Green: Queen of Clean' from booksellers at Waterstones.com (click here to see more or leave a customer review: Waterstones on Zelah Green)
' Vanessa Curtis deals with a serious subject with charm and humour. With a plot very loosely based on 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', this is the story of Zelah, an ordinary girl with an extraordinary name. Having been through difificult times, Zelah develops OCD, which starts to take over her life. With help and affection from other people, she manages to conquer it. The other children she meets during her treatment all have problems of their own, but they are also all moving, sympathetic characters in their own way'
'Afflicted by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Zelah Green is ever watchful of Germ Alert! Wash each hand thirty one times, never touch anything without protection, must leave clothes five inches apart in the wardrobe…Despite spending many hours keeping her routines in check Zelah's life begins to crumble beneath her feet when her father goes missing and she is left in the care of her grating stepmother. With the help of a family friend Zelah is sent to Forest Hill House on a course of treatment amongst troubled adolescents. The road to recovery is no smooth sailing as Zelah must combat her condition in ways she never thought possible. Tangled up in the life of Forest Hill community brings never a dull moment as each new acquaintance as a host of problems which leaves Zelah constantly on her toes.
'Zelah Green Queen of Clean' is an uplifting and charming narrative illuminating a condition which effects up to five percent of adolescents. Zelah's condition is an extreme one which she relates in a voice which feels honest and true. The other residents share disorders common too many teenagers from anorexia to depression and through this young protagonist the reader discovers courses of therapy to help. Whilst many new titles in the world of teenage fiction can be placed in the misery memoir category 'Zelah Green Queen of Clean' is very original. Despite the heavy nature of its content and moments which are genuinely startling Vanessa Curtis ensures that this is a wholly life affirming novel. '
A fab new review of Zelah from Jill Murphy at Bookbag:
Zelah's mum died. Her dad married again and her stepmother is awful. Life isn't good and it's complicated further by Dirt Alerts. And as if Dirt Alerts weren't bad enough by themselves, they also have an alarming knack of escalating to fully-fledged Germ Alerts. Zelah copes by washing her hands thirty-one times and by jumping on the top step one hundred and twenty-eight times. Several times. Every day. She also spends a great deal of time checking power switches, changing her shoes, and taking plastic gloves on and off.
Then her father disappears and her stepmother packs her off to therapy at Forest Hill, where Alice doesn't eat, Sol doesn't speak, and Caro plays Marilyn Manson while she cuts her arms.
It's all sounding rather depressing, isn't it? But it really, really isn't. Vanessa Curtis brings an incredibly light touch to this book about OCD and it allows readers to explore some tremendously serious issues without breaking their hearts to do it. You feel desperately sorry for Zelah and her fellows at Forest Hill, but Zelah's bright, almost spunky, first person narration gives you real sense of the potential she has if only she could learn to control her OCD. And as she begins to understand and empathise with the struggles of her peers, so she begins to understand how to cope with her own problems.
So while there aren't exactly many laughs, there are plenty of light moments to balance the tragic ones. At one point in her therapy, Zelah asked to touch the inside of a toilet bowl with her bare hand. As she runs an internal commentary on her stress levels - Zelah Green wins the gold medal for toilet touching! - you just can't help but laugh. At the same time, you feel an overwhelming sense of solidarity with her suffering. Zelah herself is fascinating both as a person and an OCD sufferer. She's sparky, original, bright, and - most of the time - she's honest with herself. As a character bringing awareness about a horrible illness to thousands of readers, she's an absolute triumph.
It's difficult to think of some fault or pick to balance my gushing here, to be honest. Zelah's stepmother is a bit of a cardboard cutout really, and her eventual seeing-off is a tad unlikely, but she's such an unimportant part of the book it's barely worth mentioning. Otherwise, Zelah Green, Queen of Clean comes highly recommended by Bookbag.
A review by Luisa Plaja of CHICKLISH fame:
Since the death of her mother, Zelah Green has been increasingly obsessed with cleanliness, and she has certain rituals she needs to perform to get through her day. Other than that, though, she's coping well with life - she goes to school, has a best friend, misses her dad since he disappeared, hates her step-mother... Until her step-mother announces that Zelah is going away for treatment of her condition. Then Zelah finds herself sharing a house with other troubled teenagers, and even worse for her, the Doc, whose treatment of Zelah's disorder will require great courage.
Zelah's voice has clarity and simplicity and it's easy to get drawn into her view of life. Even though she initially resists treatment, Zelah has many troubles to overcome, and overwhelming grief to cope with. Some disturbing details of the other teenagers' disorders and illnesses are also in the novel, but they are not dwelt on for long. Zelah continues to focus on her own journey in a way that's almost selfish, but that you feel is in keeping with her obsessive character. And then there are the genuinely touching moments when she does start to reach out to others and realise that she's not alone.
There are also lighter moments and humour among the serious issues. The story is very loosely based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and it's fun to see how each character fits with a fairy tale character. I did sometimes feel that I wanted to know more about the other inmates of the house. But of course, this is Zelah's story, and it's an honestly told one. Highly recommended.
Since the death of her mother, Zelah Green has been increasingly obsessed with cleanliness, and she has certain rituals she needs to perform to get through her day. Other than that, though, she's coping well with life - she goes to school, has a best friend, misses her dad since he disappeared, hates her step-mother... Until her step-mother announces that Zelah is going away for treatment of her condition. Then Zelah finds herself sharing a house with other troubled teenagers, and even worse for her, the Doc, whose treatment of Zelah's disorder will require great courage.