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#1 Supporter by Alexandra, from Avila College.

Sometimes books can tap into emotions that lurk in the depths of your soul...

Dear Ursula Dubosarsky,

I’ve just finished reading your incredible book, The Red Shoe.

It was intriguing, deep, amazing, fast-paced and very emotional. I had never read any of your books until now and it was an enticing first experience! It was bursting at the seams with imagination. The amount of thought that would have gone in to your book makes my head spin! You are an extremely talented author and I hope to write like you someday. Here are some of my favourite parts of your book (mind you, these were very hard to pick....)

“Their father switched off the news and all the little men inside closed their mouths at once.”

This was when the main character, Matilda, thought there were little people inside the radio having conversations. This was something I could relate to as my dad used to tell me there was a miniature man inside the ticket machine that would hurriedly write your ticket and push it through the slot into your open hand.

Another thing I could relate to in your book was the setting. My grandparents live in the country and I have been on a number of school camps to regional Victoria. This helped me to picture what the scene would have looked like as a lot of The Red Shoe was set in remote bush-land in Sydney.

Here’s another of my favourite excerpts:

“Under the sea it was always night, there was no counting of hours or minutes, there were no beginnings or endings of things to have to change clothes for, to eat meals by. Nobody spoke, there was no English or French or Russian, just bubbles rising up to the surface and disappearing, like shadows of submarines.”

It was also set on the beach and at the Basin. I love the beach, the sensation of sand massaging your feet and of seaweed swirling round your ankles. I went to primary school where you could smell the beach from the play ground so I had a very deep understanding of those parts of the book. Obviously you love the beach too, to be able to describe it in so much detail. Did you grow up near the bay?

I absolutely loved your book! If you had a fan club, I am confident I would be the president. If you had a perfume or aftershave named “Red” in a little red crystal shoe bottle (just a suggestion.....) I would smell like it every day of the year. 

You are now a favourite author of mine and I am proud to say that I am a newly-found fanatical fan!

From Your #1 Supporter,

Alexandra

P.S Hope you don’t blush too much but this is what it said on the back of your book;

“Her books, let us make no mistake about this, are classics.”

And guess what, I agree!

P.P.S Write another book soon! Maybe a sequel - ‘The Blue Shoe’!  Let me know what you think...........?

SHARED STORIES ANTHOLOGY 2022  Imagine If...