I just finished reading a really interesting memoir. Thirteen chickens for a saddle is written by 26 year old Robyn who writes about her childhood growing up in Botswana with an eccentric family that lives on the fringe. The book is about her life set against the whole background of Botswana and the AIDS epidemic when it first began. Her father was a doctor and her mother was into alternative ways of healing and they were in the forefront of treating people in the early days of the epidemic. Her father longed to leave medicine and have a farm and reclaim the land to the way it used to look in Botswana before it was overgrazed and overfarmed and eventually the book takes us to the farm and their struggles there. The book is also an interesting look at homeschooling. Robyn and her siblings were all homeschooled and it is interesting to see a young woman looking back and reflecting on her upbringing and her education at home by a mom who was clearly way ahead of her time in her beliefs about education and raising children. The title comes from Robyn's business venture as a young teen in raising egg laying chickens and selling the eggs to get money for a saddle for her horse. I think it is a very interesting book and really paints a vivid picture of life in Africa. Sara
Thirteen chickens for a saddle
Posted - Jun 13 2009 : 7:33:55 PM
