Basti is happy in her life as the Apprentice Witnesser in her small town. Her guardian and main miracle witnesser is a tall, beautiful black woman named Lodyma Darsey. She is an expert storyteller at the town markets, and wows the crowds with her tales taken from real-life events and her glamorous if-a-little-worn cloaks.

Lodyma has other things collected from the past and a world Basti never experienced. Basti was born into this new harsher world, with less people, and the ongoing threat of illnesses sweeping through populations at random.

“Far as I can tell, the big collapse was when the climate got hotter, the cities washed into the sea and the pollution and diseases took out most of the people.”

Now it is most dangerous for men and older boys to live in the towns, as they are more susceptible to the virus’. Most have left their families and live in the hills away from people, surviving on what they can catch and kill.

Farm stock are non-existent due to the illnesses that spread from them to humans. Chickens are also under suspicion by most and rare for the same reason.

Basti, Lodyma and their town, barter, exchange and look out for one another. But Basti believes Lodyma only took her in because she was missing her son who she’d sent into the hills alone, to protect him from the sickness.

Basti reveres her home in Lodyma’s caravan and when another child arrives, she worries she will lose her position as Lodyma’s apprentice. She knows she has always worked hard for Lodyma, but can this young, clever, and spirited newcomer take her place?

Based in an all too possible future, Bren MacDibble takes readers into a different way of life. Less people, and more care within communities, but within a subsistence, bartering world with simple pleasures and no electricity.

I found the backdrop of main character Basti’s world fascinating as this is the only world she knows. Her guardian remembers how the world used to be and has survived the changes when many haven’t.

Basti herself is a caring, hard-working, and thoughtful soul, and has a knack for capturing the beautiful moments in life around her.

Regardless of the backdrop or the time it is set, the theme of a mother’s love is eternal wherever and whenever, and this is a key theme in The Apprentice Witnesser. Unsure where Basti fits within a family suddenly morphing before her, it is heart-wrenching to watch her uncertainty at her future.

Loved the ending.

Author – Bren MacDibble

Age – 9+

(2024, Allen & Unwin, Future, Dystopian, Blended Family, Animals, Growing up, Love, Women, Girls, Storytelling, Collecting stories, Miracles, Viruses, Illness, Population decimated, Climate changed world, Melted icecaps, Flooded coastlines, Subsistence living, Foraging)