The Golden Day

by Ursula Dubosarsky

Overview

When their teacher goes missing during an outing, eleven girls grapple with the aftermath in this haunting, exquisitely told psychological mystery.

The Vietnam War rages overseas, but back at home, in a year that begins with the hanging of one man and ends with the drowning of another, eleven schoolgirls embrace their own chilling history when their teacher abruptly goes missing on a field trip. Who was the mysterious poet they had met in the Garden? What actually happened in the seaside cave that day? And most important — who can they tell about it? In beautifully shimmering prose, Ursula Dubosarsky reveals how a single shared experience can alter the course of young lives forever. Part gripping thriller, part ethereal tale of innocence lost, The Golden Day is a poignant study of fear and friendship, and of what it takes to come of age with courage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763667238
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	08/06/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ursula Dubosarsky is an award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults. About The Golden Day, her first book with Candlewick Press, she says, “The little girls watch, wonder, respond, change, and grow—and then they’re gone, forever. This element of the story, I suppose, is at least partly autobiographical. But, as I say—all of our teachers come home safe and sound in the end.” Ursula Dubosarsky lives in Australia.

Editorial Reviews

Eleven schoolgirls are haunted by their teacher's inexplicable disappearance during a field trip in this atmospheric mystery set in Vietnam War–era Sydney. Miss Renshaw's young students know their teacher is a bit eccentric. They also understand that their class's frequent poetry-writing excursions to a local garden are actually excuses for their teacher to see Morgan, a charismatic conscientious objector who is one of the gardeners. "It will be our little secret," Miss Renshaw says of their meetings with Morgan, but that secret becomes a burden when Miss Renshaw and Morgan vanish during an outing. Through precise, vivid descriptions, the third-person narrative evokes the contrast between the girls' cloistered school lives and the hard realities of the outside world. The students are "eleven schoolgirls in their round hats, with their socks falling down, hand in hand, like a chain of paper dolls"; meanwhile, soldiers are dying in Vietnam, and prisoners are being hanged at home. The mystery is less a whodunit and more a psychological study of the girls--especially anxious Cubby, whose friendship with sensible Icara is sorely tested by the affair--and invites comparisons to cult film classic Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Read this slender mystery for the meticulous prose and characterization, not for the plot. (Historical mystery. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews

…unsettling and atmospheric…Dubosarsky's spare prose explores the space between innocence and adulthood. Shaped by the girls' growing awareness of the world, her scenes are uneasy dreamscapes. Questions about responsibility, violence, sex, fear and death bloom beneath their placid surface. Unanswerable, they linger past the end of this slender but powerful volume.

The New York Times Book Review - Jessica Bruder

Blending mystery with coming-of-age themes, Dubosarsky’s novel, set in 1967 at an Australian all-girls school, explores a class’s response to the unexplained disappearance of their teacher. Miss Renshaw, lover of poetry and hater of capital punishment, takes her group of 11 “little girls” on a field trip to visit a public memorial garden and “think about death.” There they meet an odd groundskeeper named Morgan, who leads them into a cave to see ancient Aboriginal paintings. The girls exit safely, but Miss Renshaw and Morgan do not reappear, and the girls return to school as the tide sweeps in. The incident, later reported to authorities, bonds the girls as each faces bewilderment, guilt, and grief when it becomes clear their teacher will not likely return. Dubosarsky (The Word Snoop) subtly shows the impact of the tragedy through fragments of conversations, observations, and memories, while expertly sketching a cast of vulnerable, inquisitive children and ridiculous authority figures. Laced with humor amid a steady feeling of dread, the atmospheric narrative chillingly evokes lurking forces capable of tarnishing even the most golden and innocent of days. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Dubosarsky’s spare prose explores the space between innocence and adulthood. Shaped by the girls’ growing awareness of the world, her scenes are uneasy dreamscapes. Questions about responsibility, violence, sex, fear and death bloom beneath their placed surface. Unanswerable, they linger past the end of this slender but powerful volume.
—The New York Times

In a stunning feat of perspective, Dubosarsky inhabits all 11 girls at once, snaking through a thousand small joys and triumphs and fears and petty grudges as they absorb life’s bleakest truths as well their own complicity in them... [T]his is a masterful look at children’s numb surprise to the most unsavory of adult developments.
—Booklist (starred review)

Laced with humor amid a steady feeling of dread, the atmospheric narrative chillingly evokes lurking forces capable of tarnishing even the most golden and innocent of days.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Through precise, vivid descriptions, the third-person narrative evokes the contrast between the girls’ cloistered school lives and the hard realities of the outside world. ... Read this slender mystery for the meticulous prose and characterization...
—Kirkus Reviews

Chilling, elegant, atmospheric... Ms. Dubosarsky deftly conveys the confusion of childhood, the strangeness of things half-glimpsed and only partly understood. With quiet brilliance she evokes the distinct personalities of the classmates... "The Golden Day" is the sort of book that churns something up deep inside the reader; it will be as hard for an adult to forget as the young people ages 12 and older for whom it is intended.
—The Wall Street Journal

The Golden Day is deeply magical but also painfully real.
—BookBrowse

From the Publisher

While participating in a field trip that a young class is told not to mention to anyone, their teacher disappears. What happened that day? And whom can the kids talk to? Kate Rudd has the perfect voice to narrate the innocence, wonder, and confusion of a classroom of young girls as they try to figure out what has happened to their teacher. Rudd’s emotional narration captures the girls’ worry and sense of a world gone awry. The novel crafts subtle tension, and Rudd's voice crafts a tone to match as the story unfolds. Her narration builds just the right amount of suspense in a sophisticated thriller that leaves listeners wondering what they believe about what happened. S.B.T. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2013 - AudioFile