Twenty Chickens for a Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1868423069 ISBN 13: 9781868423064

Synopsis

Documents the author's adventures of growing up in Botswana with her loving and eccentric family, an upbringing marked by her doctor father's yearnings to be a vet, her holistic and home-schooling mother, and the apartheid mind-set embraced by their white neighbors. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

'The nearest thing you will get to Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals in Africa and it is just as enchanting' Giles Foden, Conde Nast Traveller 'Beautifully written and lovingly told, Scott's book has the makings to be Out of Africa meets Running with Scissors' New York Times Book Review 'A fabulous read, rollicking, good-humoured and intensely sane' Alexandra Fuller 'Scott does more than simply record her African adventures. She tackles the difficult issue of race, revealing a shift in white attitudes across the generations [and] remind[s] us that southern Africa has many different histories' Independent

Synopsis

When Robyn Scott was six years old her parents abruptly exchanged the tranquil pastures of New Zealand for a converted cowshed in the wild of Botswana, where their three small children grew up collecting snakes, canoeing with crocodiles and breaking in horses in the veld. Linda Scott haphazardly and single-handedly homeschooled Robyn, Damien and Lulu, while Keith ran a flying doctor practice and attempted, with erratic success, to adapt to the unique demands of rural clinics and the growing burden of AIDS. Funny and unsentimental, Twenty chickens for a Saddle is an account of a remarkable childhood and a unique portrait of modern Botswana, one of Africa's rare democratic success stories. It is an uplifting, engaging and deeply affectionate portrayal of an extraordinary place and family.

Edition details

• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1868423069
• ISBN 13: 9781868423064
• Binding: Paperback