posted on 05 Apr 2018

How to Bee by Bren MacDibble

What would the world look like if all the bees disappeared? This very real possibility is brought to life in this readable dystopian story set in the near future about nine year old Peony who lives in a part of rural Australia. She has never known anything else so is relatively happy living and working very hard on a fruit farm with her kind grandad and sometimes annoying sister, far away from the big city. Her mother works there as a servant to a rich family and only returns for respite visits every few weeks when she spends most of the time in an exhausted sleep.

Every day Peony plays her part in helping to pollinate the fruit trees using feather wands but her dearest wish is to be promoted to become one of the special ‘bees’ who wears a  stripey black and yellow outfit and is much more important role that is relatively well paid. Life is hard for her and the other families who work on the farm and it is clear that they live in an unequal society. For instance, all the unblemished fruit is packaged and sent to the city to be sold to the privileged minority, so although Peony is surrounded by apples, apricots and pears, it is a rare treat to be able to share and enjoy a piece of fruit:

‘Apples cost loads, so none of us farm kids ever had a whole apple to ourselves. Just bits from the pulp bin on the way to be apple juice. Fruit is my favourite thing in the whole world.’

Despite all the difficulties, she is secure in this familiar world and so isn’t at all tempted when Ma suggests that she comes to work with her in the city so that she can earn more money. She resists fiercely but eventually she is forcibly taken by Ma and her nasty new boyfriend, ‘The Ape’ to begin work in a huge house as a servant. She is understandably furious about this and begins to plot her escape, that is until she learns that she is to be a servant to Esmeralda, the daughter of the wealthy Mr and Mrs Pasquale.

Fortunately, Peony is a forthright and confident girl who isn’t at all intimidated by social conventions. Her direct way of talking to her young mistress rather reminded me of the relationship between Mary Lennox and her maid, Martha in The Secret Garden. As in that classic story, class and status differences soon dissolve and their unlikely friendship blossoms. Peony comes to realise that Esmeralda’s life is not as perfect as it seems because she has a problem that prevents her from living a ‘ normal’ life. She suffers from acute anxiety and agoraphobia, probably as a result of knowing that her grandmother was abducted and murdered many years before. Peony sets about building her friend’s confidence and helping her to slowly take control of her fears.

Returning to the farm to become a ‘bee’ is never far from her mind and eventually she gets the opportunity to make the long and difficult journey home. I have left a lot of the details out of this review because I obviously don’t want to spoil the plot. It is a really well written original story about friendship and family that doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of life, including domestic violence and death. It shows glimpses of a future world that includes the effects of climate change, poverty, hunger and many other hardships.

This is the first novel published in the UK by an author raised on farms all over New Zealand, who clearly loves the natural landscape of Australia which she writes about so eloquently. She also weaves in lots of information about the importance of taking care of the environment, especially bees. It all works very well because Peony is such a likeable and brave character who cares about people and tries hard to be helpful, generous and wise wherever she happens to be living. These are the qualities that make it a beautiful story that needs to be widely enjoyed and talked about by readers of all ages.

 

Karen Argent

 

April 2018