SuitabookRed kayak
Priscilla Cummings
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside your child if the death or the difficult choices feel weighty. Pause after the tragedy or at Brady’s dilemma, letting them ask questions before moving on.
- Themes
- Truth, loyalty and responsibility: Brady discovers that his friends’ prank caused the kayak tragedy and wrestles with whether to tell others, while fearing consequences for himself and his friends. Brady’s decision to disclose what he knows is presented as the course he recognises as right, after a sustained conflict over loyalty and responsibility.
- Grief and guilt: After the child’s death, Brady grieves and feels guilty, including because he unwittingly gave his friends the idea for their prank. Brady’s grief and guilt follow the child’s death, and his unwitting role in the prank adds to his burden.
- Worth knowing
- A young child dies after a kayak capsizes; Brady tries to revive him and is left grieving and guilt-ridden. The tragedy and its aftermath may be difficult for readers sensitive to death or loss.