The Golden Day

This spooky little book catches the edge of things just right - the boundaries of what we know about each other, the line between tame gardens and wild places, the quick switch in the fall between bright afternoons and surprisingly dark evenings, and on and on. It's murky, secretive, beautiful territory. I love when I can't really say whether it's realistic fiction or fantasy because it depends on what you choose to believe.

This short book unsettled me. Even after waiting a couple of days to write my review, I'm still not sure how I feel, or if I understood it.

This book is based on the facts that children will keep adult secrets, even when they shouldn't; a group of children who experience the same tragic event, bond in a way that changes them, permanently. After their teacher, Miss Renshaw, disappears, Cubby, one of the students, sees so many things for which she has no background knowledge. Her innocence makes her an unreliable narrator. I'm still wondering if I should view the story through her eyes, or my own jaded ones. Icara, another more realistic student, due to her own circumstances, sees things in a totally different way, but we aren't in her show more head. Miss Renshaw quotes follow.

P. 15 "Far flung."
P. 19 "We won't mention Morgan. Will we?"
P. 21 "Save your tears for greater sorrows, girls."
P. 24 "the world needs dreamers, not realists."
P. 68 "Not now. Not ever." show less

The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky is an easy to read YA novella set in a Sydney girls's school in 1960s.

Eleven girls and their teacher Miss Renshaw take an unplanned excursion outside the school grounds one sunny day, and their teacher strangely disappears.

With an eerie feeling like that in Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, The Golden Day is eerie in a subtle way, although Australian author Dubosarsky doesn't attain the giddy heights of Joan Lindsay in her execution.

This novella is well-written with a mystery to excite YA readers and is suitable for middle grade readers too.

(I won this copy of The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky in the Australia Day blog hop in 2015, thanks to Allen & Unwin).

This novel takes place in 1967, in Australia where eleven girls and their teacher and a man named Morgan take an impromptu field trip to a cave to see paintings supposedly done by the aborigines. Their girls come back, their teacher disappears.

This book and its haunting tone drew me in, the eleven young girls would lose their young innocence that day. The tragedy of these events would color there lives in different ways. Cubby is an inquisitive young girl, very impressionable and able to see and discern things that the other cannot. She believes her teacher is never coming back, a few of the girls believe she will return. Towards the end of the book, flour of the girls including Cubby are in a restaurant celebrating the end of their show more school days, when they see something they never thought to see again. But is it real? Are there any clues to what really happened to Miss Renshaw. Where did Morgan go? Is the story they are told at the end true?

The greatest draw and alternately the greatest set back in this novel is the ambiguity. The tone as I mentioned is haunting, almost dreamy. Very different book, written for a YA audience but I can really see it being a book read in a classroom, since there is no overt sex or drugs, just a haunting story of how a tragedy effected those involved. I admit, I am still pondering this one. show less

This is a very short, sweet little book, and this is a strong three stars.

In a very loose sense, it's about a teacher who goes mysteriously missing while on a outing with her class of schoolgirls in the late 1960s. It's the kind of book where much more focus is given to how this impacts the girls in her classroom. It's a very internal book, presented from the point of view of one of the students, who observes the events leading up to the disappearance and then the reactions of the other girls, their parents, and other teachers. The language is clear and sets such a specific tone, it's all done very well.

There is something a bit odd about it. Given the events of the plot, that's supposed to be odd, and it's such a brief book, it's more show more like a sketch of the story. The author does such a good job of mimicking a voice from that time, it's almost eerie, you could really believe this manuscript was found in a vault. I'm pretty sure it's being marketed as YA, but I'm not entirely clear on who the intended audience is - it almost seems more like "adults who read YA" because I think it helps to be a little nostalgic for a certain kind of girls school story. Then again, I was also the teenager who passed over current books (well, I read them, just not over and over again) to hunt down the outdated teen adventures and romances that hadn't been checked out of my library in years, so maybe there are still those girls today.

I am in love with the cover art, the designer did a fabulous job of capturing the style of books for girls from that era, it's so impressive and I'm going to be extremely sour if they change it for the paperback. It really complements the time in which the book is set.

I'm not sure if it's some combination of the subject matter, or the Australian location, but it makes one think of Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's really only very vaguely similar. show less

Strange little book of mysteries -- enjoyed the voice, enjoyed the Australian setting, enjoyed the ineffable unknowns. Lovely.

Undeveloped characters and an ample supply of promising leads that went nowhere kept this from being a winner for me. The idea of students keeping quiet out of loyalty to their teacher can only go so far. The concept was intriguing; perhaps the short length was the reason I felt shortchanged by this book.