THE GOODBYE YEAR explores all the trickiness and confusion of the end of primary school and a new stage of life that looms with all its uncertainties and possibilities.

THE GOODBYE YEAR
by Emily Gale
Text Publishing, September 2022

It’s the start of 2020 and Harper is filled with anticipation about being in the final year of Riverlark Primary. She wants a leadership role, the comfort of her friendship group, and to fly under the radar of Riverlark’s mean-boy.

But one by one things go wrong. When Harper’s best friends are made school captains they are consumed by their roles, while her own role—library captain—is considered second-rate. Then something major throws life off course: her parents take overseas jobs as nurses in a war zone. Harper moves in with Lolly, a grandmother she barely knows—and Lolly’s five pets, vast collection of old trinkets and very different expectations.

And then strange things start to happen: Harper wakes in the night in odd places; an old army badge seems to have a mind of its own; and on a visit to the school library she’s convinced she’s seen a ghost.

Who is haunting her? Can she get through the anxiety of the pandemic without her mum and dad? And will Harper find a way to be happy with her goodbye year?

Emily Gale’s books include The Other Side of Summer and its companion novel I Am Out with Lanterns, the Eliza Boom Diaries, Steal My Sunshine and Girl, Aloud, as well as her recent middlegrade collaboration with friend and fellow author Nova Weetman, Elsewhere Girls, and the upcoming Outlaw Girls.