Day of the Whale by Rachel Delahaye

Title: Day of the Whale

Author: Rachel Delahaye

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st August 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 304

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: On an island ruled by whales, one boy is searching for his missing father, another is refusing to forget the past and a girl is on the run. Together, they embark on an adventure of discovery that could anger the whales and crack their community apart.

Day of the Whale is set in the future and the action plays out on a fictional island called Cetacea, located where Australia used to be. Why ‘used to be’? Because the world has flooded.

The island is watched over by whales, and all of the island’s people follow Big Blue, the giant whale-god. So you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is a book about whales.

‘Follow the big blue’.

That was the last thing Cam’s father said to him. Cam follows Big Blue – everybody does on the island of Cetacea. Their lives take place within his rules, delivered to them by enigmatic whale-talker, Byron Vos. Byron was once a marine scientist but is now organizing an epic clean-up operation to revive the ocean after centuries of human greed and neglect. And yet Cam wonders if there is a more complex truth. A truth that may be connected to his father’s disappearance.

~*~

Welcome to Cetacea – pronounced Si-tay-sha, an island that used to be Australia before a series of floods destroyed the world and reset things. Everyone now eats a plant-based diet, and worships a whale called Big Blue – and Cam Solomon wants to follow the big blue and find out more about the whales that everyone in his community worships and follows. Big Blue’s rules are delivered to Cam and the rest of Cetacea by an enigmatic whale-talker who was once a marine scientist called Byron Vos. Byron wants to revive the ocean, but Cam senses there is more to the story – more behind the walls that nobody can see – a mystery that is connected to his father’s disappearance, and harsh truths that could alter their community forever.

Set in a future that feels not too far away, Day of the Whale explores the way communities are rebuilding themselves in the wake of the destruction of the world. I say not too far away because there are people who know about the world as we know it, who remember the world before the floods and before the plant-based diet, illustrating the contrast between the communities and worlds presented in this novel, where any form of seeking out knowledge beyond what Vos tells everyone is not allowed. This prompts Cam to seek out more knowledge, and he meets Petra and Banjo, a Darkinjung descendant who understands the land and the stories from long ago that formed his people’s knowledge about what was once Australia. Together, they want to find a way to help Cam find his father – but long-held secrets found in old books will set Cam and his friends on a new course of discovery with a new purpose and threats.

Whales are sacred and important in this novel that examines the implications and effects of climate change, and what could happen to the world and how societies will rebuild themselves in the wake of disaster. In this instance, it was a society where everyone was assigned their roles and told where they had to be when, and were told when and what they could eat – something that everyone saw as positive at first. Though as a reader, I sensed there was something not quite right about Vos – everything felt too easy to explain, and like Cam, I wanted to know more. He is a curious character who doesn’t believe everything he is told, or at least, starts to question it. He’s the character in a community who starts to question everything, and who, when he finds knowledge that has been hidden from the community, sees the world differently. He’s the rebel who wants to help everyone and reveal the truth that is bubbling along throughout the novel.

As a villain, Vos was terrifying because he came across as so normal and reasonable. Everyone trusted him and believed him because he had, in a sense, perhaps brainwashed them over time and convinced them he knew what was best for them. Because he controlled what people did and the knowledge he shared and how, this showed how dystopian he really was – and how he used his power negatively. So, it is up to Cam, Banjo, and Petra to come together and find a way to reveal what is really going on, and find out what has happened to Cam’s father.

As the novel progressed and secrets were revealed, I felt there was a sense of urgency to find out what had really happened, and what Vos was hiding – if he was hiding anything. Cam’s world started to change as curiosity got the better of him – an element of a changing world and the way that people’s desire and thirst for knowledge grows. Something sparked in Cam’s mind that I felt was almost a reminder of humanity’s curiosity that drives our desire to learn whatever we can rather than being told what to believe or what we should know. It is a novel that reveals we shouldn’t just believe what one person says, or take it as the truth. That we can question authority and take care of the environment, and still have our knowledge – it isn’t a situation where something has to be sacrificed in favour of something else as Cetacea seems to have done under Vos. The Day of the Whale reminds us what might happen to the world in the future and shows us how people might cope with it. I found myself wondering what had happened with the rest of the world, and how much had they changed? Cam was the conduit for questioning what he had been told and seeing this world through the eyes of a child, who wanted to know more than what he knew was very well written and highlighted the significant role that education and knowledge, culture and stories plays in our lives and identities, and what being part of a community -wherever you live -means. I enjoyed this novel and its whale motif, and what it brings to the climate change conversation.