A beautiful story full of love and connections showcasing our possible future if we do not change our present ideas and practices.
Feature image credit: Allen & Unwin
Bren MacDibble was born in New Zealand and lived in Melbourne for 20 years before moving to the coral coast of Western Australia. She is well-known for her middle-grade fiction which explores our future and the impact we may have on our survival.
The Apprentice Whisperer, also set in future Australia, specifically northern Queensland, takes place at a time when our population has greatly diminished due to disease, climate change, and greed. Bastienne Scull is an orphan who lives with the local “Witnesser of Miracles,” Lodyma Darsey. Basti is learning the trade and hopes to one day take over from Lodyma. They both live in a small community of women because the “sickness” regularly comes and kills all the men. The sickness has taken Lodyma’s husband and eldest son, so she long ago sent her teenage son away to the hills to keep him safe. Occasionally, the men come down from the hills, but rarely stay too long in case they too lose their lives. The people of this time have carved out a way to exist. They have accepted the new order of things and women are now relying on women.
All Lodyma wants is to know whether her son has survived and is safe, but she has not heard from him since he left. Basti just wants to be assured of a permanent place to stay, have someone who loves her unconditionally, and maybe have a profession she can one day inherit. But things change when they are asked to witness something at a monastery.
All the characters in this story come alive on the page. We feel the losses of both Lodyma and Basti. We sympathise with them when food is scarce, clothes are wearing out, and life is tough. The women are making the most of their lives, looking after each other and trading goods and services. It is a story where few remember the world as it used to be, but all are resigned to this new world order.
This story is both disturbing and full of hope, set in a time when there are few people left. Cities and towns have been abandoned and small groups of people cling to each other trying to survive. In particular, the new world is framed by plastics which cannot be recycled, change in weather patterns, melting of icecaps, land sinking into the ocean, animals disappearing, and the return to basic necessities to just stay alive. We are confronted with a world which is all too real and reminded of the effect our present lives have on future generations.
This is an excellent book for discussion in an upper primary, early secondary class. It will hopefully challenge the ideas of our younger generation and maybe encourage them to try to clean up the mess they have inherited. And it may also help them to understand more about this land we live on, including the seasons, the growing of crops, and the changing weather patterns. Adults reading this story will hopefully also feel some urgency to stop and think about their effect on this planet.
Reviewed by Sue Mauger
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Allen & Unwin
Released: April 2024
RRP: $17.99
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