Dear All Hello and welcome to this round of book club. JQ being far more organised than me has beat me to the report stage but her snappy summing up is probably similar to my own thoughts. In preparation for the choices of this round I had read two Ursula Dubosarsky’s novels other than this one – Abyssinia and The White Guinea Pig. Both of which I didn’t think much of. The White Guinea Pig, which has won quite a few awards, was fairly straight forward and in some ways covered the same terrain as this one. Whereas Abyssinia I still don’t know what it was about – wierd children kidnappings etc but the blurb on the back said the end was supposed to be uplifting – lucky it told me that or I would have assumed that children taken away never to see their families again would be a little unsettling for those young adults out there. So onto The Red Shoe. In the time that we have chosen this book Ursula has won another major literary prize being the Victorian Premier’s Prize (for another book – but it is her third prize this year) and in her acceptance speech she quoted the Bible – saying, and I’m paraphrasing as can’t find the exact quote, when I was a child I played with the things of a child but now I am an adult I have put those things away, she then said she thought that was the most depressing thought she could think of. I concur with this sentiment as I have spent this morning colouring in hard boiled eggs and then putting them in dye! I thought the Red Shoe was by far the best book of the three I have read. It did catch the idea of childhood well and there was a quote about the feeling of your skin getting sunburnt and your blood being warm that really took me back to my own childhood and summer. It also was an insight for me that really being brought up in the 50s was not that much different to being brought up in the 70s. I thought the writing was lovely and the atmosphere a bit elusive and dream like (a bit like the Virgin Suicides) – terrible things happening but its just not that upsetting which is in some ways a child’s response, and ability, to cope with tragedy. I didn’t really like the newspaper articles being included, which is something that Ursula has done before in books. I appreciate that she read a lot to get a feel for the period but outside the sort of curiousity of them I don’t think they were necessary. I liked the idea of children trying to make sense of the half-truths and half stories they hear eg polio and the Petrovs. I thought the revelation of what had happened at the Basin and the role their Uncle played was very interesting – the only part that I didn’t like about that was the very ending like everything was going to be happy now – Floreal leaving, Elizabeth feeling better – that really didn’t ring true to the rest of the book for me but maybe you’ve got to give young adults some hope that all is well in the end. I did like the Red Shoe ideas running through it being very fond of red shoes myself but what a very gruesome fairy story – can’t say I’ll be desperate to read that one to the kids. But then as a three year old I loved Rapunzel – the blood thirsty one with eyes being put out by thorns and witches falling to their death etc. Some thoughts that occured to me What makes this book fiction for young adults (similar to Wayde’s sentitments)? as opposed to a novella perhaps for adults. Does every young adult book have a young adult as a protagonist – is that the definition? I can’t think that I would have thought this book that fab if I had read it as a young teenager. I suspect that even though I enjoyed it as an adult its a book that adults perhaps wish teenagers would read (though I’m not putting myself into that camp) rather then one that they would choose to read themselves. I was given The Children’s Bach to read as a teenager by Helen Garner and other than some reference to sex which I remember being a bit amazed by I thought it was pretty dumb even though I think its seen as a classic now – I suspect that would be how I would have felt about this one. Whereas Tamar which was the one I had hoped people would choose this round made me feel like I was a teenager as I read it – and a surly one at that – it was excellent and if anyone wished to read more YA fiction that one is highly recommended. Three and a half stars from me.
Aoife
elissa
theemc2
