The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky

Set in 1960s suburban Australia, the novel follows a group of primary-school children who remember a single extraordinary day when a charismatic teacher led them on an outing that ended in the mysterious disappearance of a classmate. The incident fractures their sense of safety and forces them to wrestle with adult evasions, shifting memories, loyalties and the slow, unsettling loss of childhood innocence as they try to make sense of what happened.

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