Why Does it matter?

Spiderbait, Annette Shun Wah


This story is about an eight year old girl that lives on a farm first shire north of Brisbane. At the start of the book she says' You don't have to look back to Medieval times to find the worst jobs in History. Not if you grow up on a poultry farm run by Chinese parents with a cleanliness obsession.' These first two sentences let us know that this girl has had to struggle living with chicken poo, chicken guts and chicken death everyday of her life with a family that is obsessed with cleanliness.
This is a very good story as it shows the determination unity of an Asian family as they try their hardest to get through a heatstroke in North Brisbane with the thousands of chickens they share their life with. The author tells us of the jobs that she had when she was eight years old living on the farm. Apart from looking after the chickens and acting as a paramedic for the poultry during a heatwave she was also the families spider exterminator as her mother thought that they were absolutely disgusting creatures despite the fact the got rid of the bugs that did more damage to both the barn and the chickens.
Her mother would use a gas-jet burner to burn the webs and as the spiders made their way down to the floor of the barn for safety it was Annette's job to squish them before they escaped and were given another chance to make their silky home again.
The Author tells us of how her family is not extremely religious. The family never goes to church and stopped celebrating Chinese new year when she was young. But at Christmas the family would 'change'. At the end of the book she states 'No one would get in trouble. It was Christmas'. This is when the family seems to really engage with each other and seem like a family not work colleagues.
This is one of my favorite stories in the book and I encourage you too read it. This story represents determination, unity, struggle and hope for an growing asian family in the relentless Australian bush land.