Robyn Scott had a very unconventional childhood. Growing up in Botswana, her father a flying doctor, her mother an enthusiastic though haphazard home-schooler, the family lived in a converted cowshed in the bush, close to their irascible, eccentric Grandpa Ivor who had been pilot to Sir Seretse Khama.
In Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, her memoir of her fifteen years in Africa, Robyn gives an account of living in a loving, hard-working home with freedom most children don't even dream of, but also proximity to the harsher side of life. It's a beautifully fresh and natural book, funny, very well-written, an unsentimental, affectionate portrait of a family but also of a country - one that is now familiar to many of us through the Botswana fiction of Alexander McCall Smith. On the serious side, this is also a frank and clear-sighted story, never moreso than when Robyn covers the country's fight against AIDS, in which her father was closely involved.
I found it all greatly engaging, moving, and extremely interesting, while Robyn herself comes across as very strong, very positive, very likeable. I thoroughly recommend it.
(By the way, Robyn has a website).
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