Red Day
Age 9+
General Fiction
Heartfelt contemporary storytelling at its best, with vivid historical flashbacks
Set in a modern-day small town among the remnants of a Japanese POW camp, this is the story of Charlie. Charlie has synaesthesia and hence sees and hears differently: people have auras; days of the week are coloured; numbers and letters have attitudes. But when Charlie meets Japanese exchange student Kenichi, her senses intensify and she experiences flashbacks, nausea, and hears unfamiliar voices in her head pulling her back to the town’s violent past.
This is heartfelt contemporary storytelling at its best.
Resources
Creators
Sandy Fussell loves words, numbers and the internet. She lives on the NSW south coast with her family, a Scottish deerhound and four cats, one of which likes to eat manuscript pages. She has been awarded four CBCA notables, a Younger Readers CBCA Book of the Year shortlisting, the Sakura Medal in Japan, an international IBBY award and her picture book was praised the New York Times. Her books are published in Australia, the UK, the US and Asia. Sandy is often found in a school library wielding her Samurai Kids books or teaching a Minecraft-based writing workshop.
Reviews
Highly recommended. Hope for the future (an informed future) springs from this story.
ReadPlus
an interesting take on a little-told part of Australia’s history
Readings
This is a novel with mysterious compartments. It’s built on sharp turns of phrase that deliver crisp and direct prose. Fussell’s writing is like music playing. Highly recommended, this brilliant novel has all the elements needed for a top read.
Kids Book Review
I read Red Day at exactly the right time. It carried me away and comforted me and made me feel less alone. And at times like these, there is nothing more valuable than a book that does this.
Just Kids Lit
Overall a wonderful book about a historical time with a little bit of magic, loss, friendship and ultimately being who you are and doing what’s right.
LizzReads
