Robyn Scott

Imagine being seven years old and your father comes home (in New Zealand) one day to announce he wants to move to Botswana. Your mother replies, "when?" This begins the real-life adventures of Robyn Scott, her parents, and two younger siblings. Ms. Scott is a fabulous story-teller. She does not appear to overly embelish or sugar-coat her stories. Her words paint a vivid picture of Africa in the 1980's and 1990's, complete with AIDS, racism, and other social ills. What a wonderful, and show more unorthodox, upbringing she had. Obviously, her mother's approach to homeschooling produced at least one very well educated and successful daughter. I look forward to more works by Ms. Scott. show less

A wonderfully warm and exotic memoir of three children growing up in Botswana. The parents get top marks for challenging the boundaries of what is acceptable in conventional society and allowing their kids to find their own way.

It also illuminates the devastation that is the AIDS epidemic. By the mid 1990’s, Botswana had one of the highest rates of HIV infections in the world where one quarter of Botswana’s adults were HIV-positive.

Wise, intoxicating and poignant. It reminded me very show more much of one of my favourite books by Gerald Durrell – My Family And Other Animals. show less

Robyn Scott's family is pleasingly eccentric, so her developmental adventures in Botswana are enjoyable and sometimes odd or alarming. I could leave it at that, but another thread that runs through the stories is the ever-increasing presence of HIV in the community. This interested me as much as, if not more than, Scott's amusing episodic memoir.

Entertaining and enlightening non fiction story of a girl growing up in an wonderfully exotic expatriate family in Botswana. Set largely in the last decade of the twentieth century, this is a story of passion filled individuals against the backdrop of a beguiling Botswana as it enters the AIDS era. Highly recommended! Well written and lots of naturalist detail.