Book Review: The Bamboo Flute by Garry Disher

Paul is a twelve-year-old farm boy living near a very small town in southern Australia in the year 1932. Due to a worldwide Great Depression, Paul and his family constantly struggle to make it by. Paul notes that after needing to sell the family piano, music has been literally and figuratively missing from their lives. He still dreams of it.

One week, news spreads of gold being discovered in central Australia and many people start to pass through Paul’s town on their way to test their luck mining. On Saturday, Paul uses his rare free time to look for gold by a stream on his family’s property. To his surprise, he finds a camping drifter named who goes by Eric the Red playing an alluring melody on a flute. During their interaction, Eric helps Paul start constructing a flute of his own out of bamboo.

While his father, among many people of the town, is either engulfed in work or being angry about the influx of greedy beggars passing by, Paul decides to keep his work-in-progress a secret. Still sticking to his normal life of working at home and daydreaming in school, where he doesn’t fit it well with the other kids, he eventually finishes the flute and is able to play whatever he wants with ease. His teacher, Mr. Riggs, who usually gives Paul a hard time during class is pleasantly surprised when he finds out about Paul’s flute and his ability to play it. He even suggests that Paul should perform something at an upcoming school concert.

On his way home from school, Paul runs into Eric the Red who is hiding from the townspeople in an abandoned house. He helps Paul improve his flute while Paul expresses concern about people looking to find and possibly punish Eric, who seems unmotivated to flee, for stealing food and staying on people’s land. Eric gives Paul a letter opener he made during his time in World War I as Paul leaves to distract some children approaching the abandoned house by playing his flute. For once he feels to be a part of their group, and he spends the rest of the day playing with his new friends.

That night, Paul builds up the courage to bring up the flute with his father. He is impressed with both Paul’s craftsmanship and talent, and his eyes light up even more when he notices the letter opener that Paul has. His father opens a box full of similar works of art that he made during his time in the war, and Paul feels a connection that wasn’t there before between him and his father as he explains the contents of the box. Now, there seems to be some music in his voice. (Disher, 1993)

The Bamboo Flute by Garry Disher both tells a little about the lives of people in rural Australia during the Great Depression and reveals a helpful strategy for making it through tough times. Paul’s situation starts gloomy and hopeless, with being lonely in a childhood based almost entirely on daily farm work. He dreams of finding gold to buy a piano that could satisfy his desire to play music, but it turns out that a more practical solution has been on his growing on his property all along. By making a bamboo flute he can be happy with hope for his family’s future without the need for a miracle or taking unnecessary risks. For a child unhappy about something in their own life, looking for small things they can do with what they have may be an important step in improving their situation.

Another powerful message in this book is that wisdom can come from unsuspecting places. Paul didn’t get help from his parents or teacher when constructing his bamboo flute, it was a drifter hated by everyone Paul knows. Despite what the local constable says at school, warning children to avoid and report unwanted visitors who steal food and commit other crimes, Paul gives Eric the Red a chance by keeping him secret. (Disher, 1993, p. 61) Doing this allows him to discover that Eric is a good person deep down, especially compared to the many rude beggars that pass door-to-door through town, and his advice for Paul to make music with something he can make proves to be invaluable. Eric does not let the town’s view of him define him, and neither does Paul.

Ultimately, The Bamboo Flute is a work of historical fiction that can give children in elementary or middle school a glimpse of a specific time in Australian history and demonstrate to them the importance of having hope, making the best of undesirable situations, and being open to everyone’s ideas.

Source:

Disher, G. (1993). The Bamboo Flute. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.