The Golden Day

by Ursula Dubosarsky

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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Mystery, Fiction, Historical, Audiobook, Australia

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 23, 2011

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 their childhood is 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.

Reviews

[Reynje · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambiguity can be incredibly creepy.

And it’s this absence of firm answers, the subtle power of suggestion, that makes The Golden Day such an unsettling, evocative read.

This slim novel succeeds as a sort of urban rendering of Picnic At Hanging Rock (let’s all just forget about Chapter 18, okay? It’s better this way, trust me), if mostly due to Dubosarksy’s elegant and assured writing.

Opening in Sydney in 1967, The Golden Day is about eleven schoolgirls and their teacher who go to the Gardens to meet a poet. What follows becomes a mystery, an unexplained event that in one way or another leaves an inedible imprint on the psyche of the group.

The Golden Day raises more questions than it answers, but I believe this is where it’s strength lies. The plot itself is slight, littered with innuendo and hints, glimpses of things seen but not fully understood by the children involved. There’s something languorous and dream-like about the storytelling, a darkness lingering at the edges of the prose, that makes the book so disquieting.

Truthfully, I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did. But Dubosarksy’s haunting story won me over with the very first paragraph:

”The year began with the hanging of one man, and ended with the drowning of another. But every year people die and their ghosts roam in the public gardens, hiding behind the grey, dark statues like wild cats, their tiny footsteps and secret breathing muffled by the sound of falling water in the fountains and the quiet ponds.”

The Golden Day is an odd and enchanting novel, not one that will meet with universal praise, but worth the experience for lovers of slightly strange, slightly quaint tales.

[Note – the chapter titles in the novel are taken from the paintings and drawings of Australian artist Charles Blackman]

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 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.

"And we all shall be changed in a twinkling of an eye."

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

Just... incredible.

There is so much that will stick with the readers, and this should be read with the coming-of-age Greats like "to kill a mockingbird", "the catcher in the rye", "a separate peace", S.E. Hinton's "the outsiders", "the virgin suicides", "never let me go" by ishiguro, and "a tree grows in Brooklyn." each of these books bring something unique to all our experiences with youth, and they all deserve to be read in one's lifetime.

"The Golden Day" could be placed on any shelf and be a success: the YA, or possibly the Y, and certainly as a novella in the adult fiction section. This is a literary achievement that any adult can enjoy and respect if they find value in ambiguity, more questions raised than answers, and subtly. It's a haunting, beautifully dark read, written in a way that is deceivingly simplistic. I absolutely recommend it more for the 18+ adult demographic if only because I think so much will be misunderstood or totally lost on children. There is brilliant layering here, and you'll surely want to get a friend to read this brief-but-harrowing novel so you'll have someone to converse with!

Simply astounded that this little powerful book is completely off the radar and will likely have trouble finding it's proper audience. The novel's two big things working against it: (1) its size is will have certain readers judging that it is not "deep enough" or is not worth their time to read; (2) and the eleven-year-old girl protagonists will get this novel pigeon-holed in some people's minds as a "Teen book" or "children's book"... so, so wrong!

If you enjoy psychological examinations of innocence and death told in poetic and ethereal tales, Ursula Dubosarsky has crafted, in my mind, a thoughtful literary novel for any age. She excels at the art of storytelling, and this tale of eleven-year olds should never, ever be discounted as "just young literature."

MH

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where there are far more questions than answers, including my curiosity about why this is YA and not middle grade?

Eleven girls went to the park with their teacher, but eleven girls came back from the park, without their teacher. So what happened to Miss Renshaw? Did Morgan, who was avoiding the war and lived in the park and with whom Miss Renshaw was wildly smitten, kill her? Or did they run off together into the vast lands of Australia? Why do the girls share collective silence over what they did or did not see that day in the cave? Why does it take eight years for them to talk about that day together again and share something which they may have constructed entirely for themselves? And is something true if it's been written down? Or do we get to write down what we want the truth to be?

This is a heck of a little book. The story seems quite straight forward, but it's rich with depth, and the writing is strong. The main characters are very young -- late elementary or early middle school -- and the story thus reads through that lens. There is loss of innocence here and it's particularly tough watching that pain happen to the characters as an adult. But I suspect it is precisely at the right level FOR middle grade readers (where, I think, YA readers might not find it as affecting). That's not to say there's not good appeal here for some YA readers, but I suspect it might be one of those books advanced middle grade readers would appreciate very much.

The historical setting works and makes sense, even as an American (it's set in Australia during the Vietnam war). I was struck especially by what it was Icara hid from her peers -- Cubby especially, who she saw as a "friend" -- because it really felt perfectly in the time period and perfectly what someone her age would do.

I keep thinking, too, about what Miss Renshaw said to Icara. She was "too practical" and wasn't enough of a dreamer, and her father's career as a judge also made her resented by Renshaw. This was yet another layer upon a complex line of questions, particularly about truth, innocence, and the imagination.

Longer review to come. Even though I'm a little unsure of the YA categorization, I do think this is one of those books that'll get some award buzz. It will be well-deserved.

[ALPHAreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Vietnam War rages overseas, but within the confines of a girl’s school in Sydney, a classroom of eleven girls are listening as their teacher, Miss Renshaw talks to them of death and hanging, injustice and the need to be open-minded.

The eleven little girls, in their matching ginghams and straw hats, take Miss Renshaw’s words very seriously. And when Miss Renshaw asks them not to tell their parents or other teachers about Morgan, the little girls are determined to keep their teacher’s secret; “our little secret.”

Morgan is the poet who tends the grounds of the Ena Thompson Memorial Gardens. He is a conscientious objector, and he has an owl’s voice.

Georgina swears she saw Morgan and Miss Renshaw kissing in the gardens, but nobody believes her.

And then one day, on another poetry outing with Morgan, Miss Renshaw takes the girls down to the rocks, to see a cave with artwork by the Aborigines inside. All eleven girls troop down to the water’s edge, holding on to their straw hats in the strong breeze, they enter the cave… and when they emerge, Miss Renshaw and Morgan are nowhere to be seen.

A search begins, but the girls cannot tell. They cannot tell their teachers, parents or even the police about Morgan… because he was their little secret with Miss Renshaw.

‘The Golden Day’ is a children’s book, written by Ursula Dubosarsky and recently named in the Children’s Book Council of Australia, shortlist of books for older readers.

This book haunts me. It’s beautifully sinister, for underneath the gorgeous prose there lays an eerie mystery.

Dubosarsky says in her author’s note that the seed for ‘The Golden Day’ was planted by a Charles Blackman painting called, ‘Floating Schoolgirl’. But she was also inspired by a collection of sad and sinister real-life stories. Such as Lennie Lawson, the painter and killer who murdered a Moss Vale schoolgirl in 1962. The disappearance of Juanita Nielsen from Kings Cross in 1975. And the disappearance and subsequent murder of Samantha Knight in 1986. All these tales of mystery and murder swim around ‘The Golden Day’ – and perhaps that’s why the book reads like it could be the true account of a murder mystery, because its seed was planted in history and inspired by true-to-life horror stories.

The book opens with Miss Renshaw talking to eleven little girls about death, more specifically the upcoming hanging of murderer Ronald Ryan on February 3, 1967 (he will be the last man hanged in Australia). It just so happens that this year, 1967, will be one marred by death for the eleven girls – “The year began with the hanging of one man, and ended with the drowning of another” – come December 1967, Prime Minister Harold Holt will drown on Point Nepean, his body never to be found. But for the eleven at this Sydney school, 1967 will be a year of death much closer to home – when their teacher Miss Renshaw vanishes, foul play suspected.

‘The Golden Day’ is wonderful. It’s amazing that Dubosarsky creates a feeling of creeping catastrophe from the first line, but still manages to lull readers into the story, capturing a moment from her own childhood in a 1967 Sydney school, and the class of eleven girls who are like their own little family.

The setting of the Sydney school read like my own experience. I attended a private all girl’s high school on the Mornington Peninsula. I wore checkered ginghams (dresses) and straw hats were compulsory. My school was situated on a hill, and overlooked Port Phillip Bay, with the city of Melbourne in the distance. There is even an old school song called ‘The Little Grey School by the Sea’. So I found it quite eerie how similar my school was to the one in ‘The Golden Day’;

Because it was such a very small class, they had a very small classroom, which was perched right at the top of the school. Up four flights of stairs, way up in the sky, like a colony of little birds nesting on a cliff, blown about by the wind with the high, airy sounds of the city coming up the hill in the ocean breeze.

Reading ‘The Golden Day’, I was transported to my own school days when the world behind the gates seemed far removed from reality. I could almost feel that old straw hat sitting atop my head, and smell the breeze from the bay that filled the classrooms…

Dubosarsky’s novel is told in third-person, but pays special attention to two of the eleven girls – Cubby and Icara. They have been friends since the first day of school, and while they are not particularly close outside of the school gates, Cubby and Icara have a special bond;

'Far-flung,' wrote Miss Renshaw on the board in yellow chalk. Miss Renshaw had large, round, sloping, marvellously neat blackboard writing. Nobody could write on the blackboard like Miss Renshaw. 'Icara is far-flung.'
Far-flung
But with Cubby, Icara was not far-flung. She was nearby-close-at-hand-a-stone's-throw-away. They were friends without either of them really knowing why. It was as though, after that first day when Icara had taken Cubby's frightened hand, she had never let it go. Cubby and Icara could sit together in the playground or on the bus or in the library not saying much for hours, just a lovely rhythmic silence, like the sound of breathing when you're asleep.

When Miss Renshaw disappears after their outing with Morgan, Icara is the first to suggest she may be dead. Other girls protest and proclaim that Miss Renshaw will return… but the years tick away to 1975, and she never does.

I could not put down Ursula Dubosarsky’s book. It really is an absolute marvel – at once beguiling and beautiful, full of rich prose and wonderful characterizations. But when the story turns dark and foul play is afoot, Dubosarsky did an equally wonderful job of chilling me down to the bone, and making my hair stand on end. I think this book has one of the best endings I have ever read – wickedly delightful.

At one point in the novel, Cubby remarks that history doesn’t seem real, almost like a hoax; “Millions and millions of people, living and dying. It’s sort of unbelievable. How could the world have so many people in it?” – and I think that’s the crux of the story. The disbelief in our own history’s – that memory is ravaged by time, truth and fiction blur and our own past’s can seem so much like someone else’s story… and, sometimes, those stories haunt us.

[Penni Russon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this at 3am in a fever with a sick baby in my arms, which may be the perfect conditions for steeping in this strange haunting tale. I love Dubosarsky's Sydney, the way that looking at the city from the water gives you a different perspective, as though you are momentarily stepping outside of time and space. I found Cubby extremely identifiable. To me this novel is about the things that happen to you as a child that you never quite believe in, and how you take the child that you were (and all the mysteries surrounding sex and death and the way the child constructs herself around those mysteries) into adulthood with you. A very psychoanalytical novel which arouses a questioning state in the reader. I love that Ursula writes such novels that deal in questions rather than answers, so ultimately meaning-making is invested in the reader. Not everyone will enjoy this novel because not everyone reads for the same reasons, but people who love The Golden Day will carry it inside them forever.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5★

It was a short book that I downloaded last year, or possibly the year before, with the audiobooksync summer reading program. It sounded intriguing in theory, but in reality it was a bit slow and fairly ordinary.

[erikahope♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ⭐️

‘There were only eleven of them, like eleven sisters all the same age in a large family.’
“Today girls,” said Miss Renshaw, “we shall go into the beautiful garden and think about death.”

In the gardens they meet a poet. What follows is inexplicable, shocking, a scandal.

I’m going to make this quick. This book was so weird, so obviously I enjoyed it. Did parts of this confuse me a little? Yea, but I still liked this nonetheless. I’m so glad that I decided to pick this up, it was really entertaining!


~~~~~~

27-09-2023

I need to gather my thoughts on this- this book was truly something.

[Pip Tlaskal]

Having taught at SCEGGS for 5 years and even using the classroom 'at the top of the tower' where the 11 little girls do their lessons, and having loved 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' this novel was a treat. Very dark despite the seaside school setting it is about this class of girls who lose their teacher on an impromptu excursion. Their teacher took them to the Botanic Gardens to 'write poems'; which makes me think how many forms are required for us to take students out anywhere these days. yet SCEGGS was a very different place in the sixties, much more casual! The language is limpid, beautiful, her choice of words plop like pebbles in a pond causing ripples in your mind, and the spooky ending.. gives you a shiver!
Read it, it won't take long; it is a novel of place and atmosphere rather than in-depth characterisation.

[Sean Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book clearly rides on the coat-tails of Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock. It would be hard not to notice the similarities - a group of schoolgirls go out with their teacher one day... and not every one will return.

However, it is really only similar in theme - the loss of innocence, the nature of mystery and the mystery of nature. When the resolution comes it is almost a dream - the reader can accept it or reject it.

A dark little fairytale.

[Adia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

When the golden day is done,
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, flower and sun,
Vanish all things mortal.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

A sad and almost eerie story, and all of it like a dream.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it but didn’t love it. I liked the story of the girls and was wondering the whole time what may have happened. I liked that it was set in Australia. Quick read.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange story. The premise was interesting but I often found the book unsatisfying.

Characters were vague and undeveloped. The first few weeks after the teacher's disappearance made up most of the book, though nothing, neither plot nor characters, nor mentioned subplots, nor even the investigation into what happened to the teacher, seemed well-developed.

Then, suddenly it is 8 years later, the girls are finishing school (coincidentally writing an exam on Remembrance Day). I was dissatisfied with the ending

not because the ending was so vague, but because the whole 'ghost not a ghost' device seemed a great deal like the 'Oh! and it was all a dream!' ending that generally irritates me in books.

Overall if the book were a cake it was well mixed and had some interesting flavours, but it also could have spent another minute or two in the oven.

[Etienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find this book boring from start to finish. Can’t say it was badly written or anything, but just an intriguing premise that didn’t deliver anything...

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very gripping 🧐

[stefiereads · Rating 4 out of 5]

What make me picked this book is the blurb. It sold me right away! I know I have to read it! And I am glad I read it!!
First, I didn’t know that it is set in Australia. It was a nice surprise because I lived in NSW for a little over 2 years, and this book make me miss Australia even more :)

Anyway, The Golden Day is a story about school girls and their teacher, who went into excursion, only to find out that the teacher is missing. It’s a pretty short read, but packed with goodness.
It’s haunting, dreamy, and eerie. I feel like the atmosphere of the book is dreamy, because of the unsureness in the story. It’s like you’re floating (I hope this make sense :p). I really really enjoy this book. I like it so so much. It’s a bit strange as well, but it’s a good kind of strange (I like book that is strange haha).

One thing that I wish could be better is the ending. I mean it’s not bad at all. Perhaps I would like it, if it ended a bit earlier. Other than that, I really likeeeee this book! And I think everyone should give it a go 💛

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful evocative book. Very poetic. and one with so much potential for analysis as a coming of age novel.
The audiobook was only disappointing in that the narrator didn't sound at all Australian, not even upper class Australian.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book creates an evocative mood of isolation, both in its setting and through what we glean of its characters and partially-revealed story, that contributes to its sense of mystery.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot to love about this book. Eleven girls and their teacher begin regularly meeting the enigmatic poet Morgan in the gardens. They talk about life, death, poetry, and the world around them. When their teacher fails to come back from one of their walks with Morgan the girls find themselves sinking deeper into a mystery while trying to understand the times they live in.

Dubosarsky creates a dark mood that can only be compared to something like Picnic at Hanging Rock. The tone throughout is etherial and dreamlike with a sinister undertone and is one of the biggest drawing points of the story. It begins with the hanging of of Ronald Ryan in 1967 and this sets the scene for the times the girls are living in. Their reactions to the disappearance are as different to their personalities and some are ridden with gilt at knowing more than they dare divulge.

Towards the end we skip to the girls final year at school. They have grown up in many ways but Duboarsky lets us know that many of their childhood experiences still influence them today. I have to admit the end took me by surprise and went in a different direction to what I expected it to, but I wasn’t disappointed. It finishes with the same tone that it starts. While this is a YA book I would not let that discourage any adult readers out there who can appreciate prose that is more often poetic than not.

[Beth The Vampire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my Masters course. An interesting little tale with childlike innocence and wonder that was really well captured. The story was interesting....although the ending was a tad confusing. Was there a paranormal element in there, because if so this didn't seem to flow like the rest of the book. Some really nice imagery and similes. Wondering who this book would be targeted towards. It is classified as 'young adult' but while the language is simple some of the themes are quite adult. I think I took more from this by reading it and reflecting on my childhood than I would have reading this as a child. For a required reading, it's not bad.

[Kate Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slight yet exquisitely rendered book about the mysterious disappearance of a girls’ school teacher, and the ripples of unease that spread out across the lives of her young students. Beautifully written, with some striking metaphors and images, the book is haunting in its strangeness.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strange and haunting book. I don’t see the YA appeal and think it would have been better as an adult book. Read it, it is a super quick read, really more of a novella with a magical realism vibe.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unresolved

[Amy the book-bat · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This one just didn't appeal to me very much. The mystery didn't seem to go anywhere, the characters didn't develop, not a fan of the ambiguous ending.

[Rhonda Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

My book club picked this short novel for our December read. What a delightfully weird tale! I'm not sure how to classify it. Set in an Australian girls' boarding school during the Vietnam War era, we see through the eyes of our ten-or-so-year-old protagonist. Their beloved teacher, a hippie-esque free spirit, takes them on a trip to a local park where the teacher's beau, a groundskeeper and poet, promises to show them ancient petroglyphs from the dream time. They all follow him to a mysterious cave. In a panic, the girls flee the confining darkness, leaving their teacher and the poet inside. Neither emerges. The rest of the book deals with the fallout.
With her poetic language and dreamy soft focus, the author beautifully captures the point of view of the child narrator. Slippery, sliding from imagination to stark reality, never quite sure of what's real, the girls struggle to protect their teacher and to honor her trust in them. The ending is just as slippery, so perhaps this mystery belongs on the literary fiction tale. In any case, I greatly enjoyed it for the beautiful language and spot-on characterization.

[Library Lady 📚 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a strange book, I'm not even sure how to rate it. I didn't dislike it, but I finished it a month ago and already couldn't remember the name of the book or the author. I had to google different combinations of key elements.

However, I didn't dislike this. The writing was vivid and dreamy, something I love, but even I found it a bit purple at times. Still, it was atmospheric and lovely.

But something was just amiss for me. Maybe the slow pace, or the inertia of the characters. I was disappointed by the end, expecting something, some more , that I didn't get. It kept my interest while driving and such. But I probably won't remember it in a year.

[Cherokee · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was no violence in the book. later in the book someone very important to the girls goes missing.
It's more satisfying because as the reader you keep wondering when this will be revealed and when will so the missing person be found.
This story doesn’t really have a detective just a bunch of little girls just trying to find their missing teacher. The class goes into a cave, so we don’t know what the cave looks like.

Any story can keep the reader interested if it makes you wonder and ponder things the yes. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery or adventure this book is a little adventurous, mysterious and really heart warmer to know that these girls love their teacher and are willing to search for her.

[Courtney Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This had a feel of Picnic At Hanging Rock about it

[Charlene]

It’s a quick, easy read. It’s pretty good although I wish it didn’t leave so much to the imagination. Also the ending was good.

[Adele Broadbent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spoilers below....!!

There are only eleven girls in Miss Renshaw’s class. And they love going out on excursions to the park to write poetry. But the real reason is so Miss Renshaw can see Morgan, the gardener and self confessed poet.
All the girls like Morgan too and none speak of their visits to other teachers or their parents.
One afternoon, Morgan tells them he wants to show them some aboriginal paintings in a cave he knows. The cave is down along the beach not far from the park, and so they follow on dutifully.
Inside the cave they don’t see anything clearly and when one girl’s asthma kicks in, in the confined space, they all scuttle back out onto the beach. They wait for Miss Renshaw and Morgan to appear – they don’t.
They return to school and a scandal erupts – but still they say nothing further than they lost their teacher in the park.
When one of them finally breaks down to the school counsellor, the police are called and a search begins. There is no sign of Miss Renshaw or Morgan.
Rumours are rife and suddenly Morgan’s face is on the front page of the newspaper. He has been in prison before for kidnapping someone.
They are never found and life goes on.
Eight years later after the girls have finished their final exam and are leaving school for the last time, they decide to celebrate by going to a café in town.
To their shock, Miss Renshaw approaches them, sits down, explains where she’s been all this time (living with Morgan) and then leaves them speechless.
Until one of them notices she is wearing the same dress she disappeared in. Was she a ghost? Of course not. She looked too real to be a ghost. But Cubby saw the necklace she always wore still around her neck. The thing was, the police had found the same necklace – lying on the floor of the cave she disappeared from.

This story is woven with poetry, the writing itself beautiful. It’s told from the point of view of the students – frightened, and confused as to where their teacher has gone. It’s intriguing, innocent and a little spooky too.