Product Description

When Robyn Scott was six years old her parents abruptly exchanged the tranquil pastures of New Zealand for a converted cowshed in the wilds of Botswana. Once there, Robyn and her siblings, mostly left to amuse themselves, grew up collecting snakes, canoeing with crocodiles and breaking in horses in the veld. In the shadow of one of Africa's worst AIDS crises, this moving, enchanting memoir is an extraordinary portrait of an unforgettable childhood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57183 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

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

Marcus Mabry, The Scotsman,May 24th 2008
'Beautifully written and lovingly told, Scott's book has the makings to be "Out of Africa" meets "Running with Scissors".'

Juliet Nicolson, Telegraph Review, June 7 2008.
"Twenty Chickens for a Saddle is such a quietly bravura performance that it is difficult to believe this is Scott's first book. The sounds, sights, scents and textures of Botswana tumble from her pages with unhurried ease, conjuring an Enid Blyton-esque adventure of a childhood and the colourful, life-filled characters it embraced."

Customer Reviews

A Gerald Durrell for the 21st Century.
I read a review of this in Conde Nast Traveller by Giles Foden describing it as "My Family and Other Animals - in Africa" and, having been a fan of Durrell since I was a teenager, I felt compelled to see if he was right.

So, granted, there's not so much about about animals in a pin-them-to-a-board-and-count-their-abdomens kind of way, but the way Robyn Scott brings to life the wildlife and landscapes of Botswana, where she grew up as a child, is very much in the spirit of Durrell's books. Hers is also an eccentric family - a flying doctor father, a homeschooling mother, an adrenaline-addicted brother and animal-obsessed sister, and, making regular cameo appearances throughout, her four wonderful grandparents, (in particular her grandfather Ivor who, with his crazy schemes, questionable flying skills and longstanding feuds, makes for many laugh-out-loud moments.) In the midst of it all is Robyn, the narrator, an oasis of calm who desperately wants to be a normal child from a normal family.

The book's real triumph is Robyn's ability to show us the warmer, more human side of Africa that we so seldom get the chance to read about. It's a really life-affirming and big-hearted book, like a love-letter to Botswana, it colourful inhabitants and beautiful landscapes.

OUR VOTE FOR BEST NON-FICTION DEBUT OF 2008
Arundel Books is an Independent Bookstore in Seattle. Our staff believes that this is the BEST Non-Fiction Debut of 2008.

Robyn Scott's Twenty Chickens for a Saddle is an astonishing debut. Set in Botswana, it is her account of growing up with one of the most wonderfully mad families you are likely to meet, whether in real life or between the covers of a book.

She has a remarkable ear for language, and a descriptive prose style that brings the bush country of Botswana, with all its flora, fauna, and people, to magically madcap life. Twenty Chickens for a Saddle brings to mind such authors as James Herriot and Augusten Burroughs.

This is our pick as the best non-fiction debut for 2008. It is insightful, inspiring, and heartwarming. Her parents, grandparents, siblings, neighbors, and the countryside surrounding them, are truly brought to life. Given Miss Scott's parents decidedly non-traditional approach to child rearing, this book will offer sustenance to parents of home schoolers everywhere.

Whether you like to read about travel, foreign cultures and peoples, families, education, natural history, biographies, accounts of coming-of-age, Africa, science, Horatio Algeresque narratives, women's studies, health and medicine, flying... or just like a darned good book, Twenty Chickens for a Saddle is for you.

If this truly remarkable book is any indication, Miss Scott has an astonishing career ahead of her, and we are looking forward to her future efforts. Make no mistake, Twenty Chickens for a Saddle stands as an equal with the very best non-fiction published by any author in 2008.

Read this!
Robyn Scott describes the members of her eccentric family so vividly, and with such warmth, that by the end of the book I felt bereft at having to say goodbye to them. Her descriptions of the Botswana landscape and her childhood adventures within it are beautifully drawn and often very funny. A fascinating picture of both modern Botswana and some fearlessly unconventional parenting. Warm-hearted and generous, a breath of fresh air in these timid times.