{"id":6579,"date":"2024-01-19T00:34:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T13:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=6579"},"modified":"2024-01-20T12:46:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T01:46:34","slug":"the-goodbye-year-by-emily-gale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/the-goodbye-year-by-emily-gale\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Goodbye Year’ by Emily Gale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'TheWhat a great start to my 2024 reading! I loved The Goodbye Year<\/em><\/a> by Emily Gale, a Middle Grade novel about twelve-year-old Harper, who has a lot to worry about as she starts her final year of primary school in 2020. Her parents suddenly announce that they\u2019re off to Yemen to work as nurses in a war zone, leaving Harper behind under the care of an eccentric grandmother she barely knows. Her best friends have been made school captains and don\u2019t seem to have time for her any more, some horrible kids are bullying her \u2026 and then COVID hits. As if that\u2019s not bad enough, there\u2019s also a mysterious old cadet badge that keeps popping up in the wrong places and a pair of ancient spectacles that fits Harper perfectly, which may just be connected to a ghost hanging out in the school library that only she can see.<\/p>\n

There is a LOT going on here and for the first section of the book I wasn\u2019t sure the author could pull everything together, but she manages it well and the conclusion is perfect (and made me cry). There\u2019s so much to like about this book, but I especially loved the way history was presented for young readers, drawing parallels between the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 and the COVID pandemic a hundred years later, and emphasising the importance of libraries and historical archives. The characters are also well drawn. Harper is such a sweetheart – she\u2019s anxious and shy, but stoic and brave when she needs to be, considerate of others and a good friend. Her grandmother Lolly is an independent, strong older woman, the child characters, even the bullies, are well-rounded, and there are some adorable dogs and cats. The ghost story is poignant and the associated historical artefacts are woven into the plot with a clever twist that I didn\u2019t see coming but worked very well. I did have one question that didn\u2019t seem to be answered. If you\u2019ve read the book – do we ever find out the cause of the estrangement between Lolly and Liz? I\u2019d thought something would come out when the family tree was revealed, but if it did, I missed it (admittedly, there were a dozen other things going on at the same time.) The Goodbye Year<\/em> is highly recommended for young readers interested in history and is a worthy winner of the 2023 Young People\u2019s History Prize<\/a> in the NSW Premier\u2019s History Awards.<\/p>\n

Emily Gale has a Substack called Voracious<\/em><\/a>, in which she discusses writing and children\u2019s literature. I recently subscribed to it and have been given some free one-month gift subscriptions to give away. You can read everything at Voracious<\/em> for free for a month, then either cancel your subscription<\/a> or choose to continue to subscribe for a fee (currently $5\/month or $50\/year but I took advantage of a special Christmas 40% off discount). If you\u2019d like a free one-month\u2019s subscription to Voracious<\/em>, leave a comment below – I\u2019ll give the subscriptions to the first three people who comment asking for a subscription.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a great start to my 2024 reading! I loved The Goodbye Year by Emily Gale, a Middle Grade novel about twelve-year-old Harper, who has a lot to worry about as she starts her final year of primary school in 2020. Her parents suddenly announce that they\u2019re off to Yemen to work as nurses in … Continue reading ‘The Goodbye Year’ by Emily Gale<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[293,18],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-6579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-books","category-my-favourite-books","tag-emily-gale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6585,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579\/revisions\/6585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}