Once again Bren MacDibble takes us to a dystopian future world - this time set in Queensland. We have wrecked the world. There is no electricity and no cars and worse there are now diseases. Blame comes from both sides - the sides in this book are women versus men. This disease seems to affect men more than women so in this divided world women live a subsistence life in make-shift villages and men have been sent into the mountains. If baby boys are born, they are dressed up as girls so they can stay in the community. Bastienne, a young girl, has been rescued by Lodyma. Lodyma's own son has been banished from the community following the death of her older son and husband.
"Both Lodyma's own kids were boys. When the sickness spreads it always takes the men. Lodyma says women and girls got different immune systems better able to put up with the sickness .. "
Bastienne Scull is nearly twelve years old, and she lives a simple life as an apprentice to the Witnesser of Miracles in a small village mostly populated by women and girls. Basti knows that miracle-hunting is a lot like mystery-solving, and her little world is full of wonder and intrigue and unexpected adventure. Lodyma is a witnesser.
"She's witnesser of miracles. People want to think she's special. ... We have markets here three nights a week. That's a lot of miracles we gotta hunt down on the other four days. Lodyma's been witness to more that a hundred miracles, so she can get through them over and over."
The 'miracles' are not really miracles, but Lodyma is a brilliant storyteller and so people 'pay' for her performances with produce and occasional coins. Basti keeps the crowd together and she sells peanuts from a local farm, and these also bring a few coins. Lodyma 'proves' her miracles with photographic evidence. I enjoyed the references to 'old tech' in this story. Lodyma has an instamatic camera. She has a limited amount of 'film' but Basti has the task of recording any 'miracles' they encounter. Basti is a very observant girl, so even though she should not waste this precious resource, she takes other photos too - photos of precious interactions between people - photos that show love.
"I don't say nothing about the other photos tucked away in my bag. The one where the fruit vendor gave those two little kids a memory they'll keep in their hearts forever, and hopefully the one of Lodyma in the shade, along with some other special photos I've taken."
Here are descriptions of the landscape:
"Far as I can tell, the collapse was when the climate got hotter, the cities washed into the sea and pollution and diseases took out most of the people."
"Over the hills, the streets are a mess. Abandoned trucks, dumped tyres, wire fences fallen down, warehouses torn open and bits and pieces pulled out and scattered everywhere. Rusty hunks of machinery things, I dunno what. Plastic contains that's cracked and faded, bits of piping and taps and sinks and old cupboards left out in the weather to swell and collapse."
Someone is selling plastic shoes at the market and then two young boys arrive and summon Lodyma to another distant settlement. Lodyma and Basti make an amazing discovery about the factory that makes the shoes but more importantly, in the monastery at Ravenshoe, they find a young wild girl. Her eyes match the strange pattern of Lodyma's - is it possible that she is the daughter of her lost son?
So now we have a group of three and Basti is no longer sure of her place - will Lodyma really want an apprentice? Perhaps Basti will need to resign herself to tedious work at the peanut farm. She becomes deeply unhappy and angry (but she holds her anger inside). Meanwhile caring for little Raveena is a full-time job. This little girl, aged five or six, is such a wild spirit and her life story is a mystery which Basti is determined to solve. As it says in the blurb below - finding this little girl will change all their lives. Is she the real miracle?
Publisher blurb: Bastienne Scull is a young orphan who lives with the local Witnesser of Miracles, Lodyma Darsey, who investigates 'miraculous events' and spins them into stories she tells at the night markets. After Lodyma's husband and elder son died of a sickness that continues to sweep the land, she sent her teenage son Osmin into the hills to live with the mountain men. That was ten years ago, and Lodyma doesn't know if he's alive or dead. And she's taken Bastienne as an apprentice to fill the void of her lost family. One day, two young boys arrive in town asking Lodyma to go on a mysterious mission to a monastery. And when Lodyma and Bastienne arrive, what they discover will change their lives.
I do enjoy books where the author makes you work hard to fill in the gaps and also books where at the end things come together - not in a saccharine, we all live happily ever after way, but in a very satisfying way, allowing a character whom you have come to care deeply about to have the promise of a better life. And I did care very deeply about Basti. The final chapters of this book are especially wonderful. If I was 'hand selling' this book to a reader in my library (or even in a bookshop) I would explain that readers do need to stick with this story because the ending will make your heart melt with happiness. I recommend this book for all fans of Bren MacDibble aged 11+. Congratulations to the publisher Allen and Unwin and the cover designer/artist Julie Hunt - this book has such an arresting cover which is sure to grab the attention of readers. Take a look at the labels I have assigned to this post - suspicion, survival, and belonging. There is also the issue of the best ways to express love in a family. There are tiny moments in this story when you deeply feel the way Basti just longs to be loved by Lodyma.
Huge thanks to Three Sparrows Bookshop who let me read the advance reader copy of The Apprentice Witnesser. It will be published on 30th April 2024.
Here is an audio book review from New Zealand.
No comments:
Post a Comment