Twenty Chickens for a Saddle

Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, Robyn's first book, is a memoir of her family's life in Botswana. It was first published in 2008, by Penguin Press, in the US, Bloomsbury, in the UK and Commonwealth, Penguin, in Canada, and De Bezige Bij, in the Netherlands. The story begins when six year old Robyn's parents abruptly exchange the tranquil pastures of New Zealand for a converted cowshed in the wilds of Botswana. There, falling in love with the country where Robyn’s eccentric grandfather had served as pilot to Seretse Khama, Botswana’s first president, Linda and Keith Scott set off in his pioneering and unconventional footsteps. Their three small children, mostly left to amuse themselves, grow up collecting snakes, canoeing with crocodiles and breaking in horses in the veld. Twenty Chickens for a Saddle is an account of the family’s fifteen years in Botswana, during which Linda haphazardly and single-handedly homeschools Robyn, Damien and Lulu, while Keith runs a flying doctor practice, attempting, with erratic success, to adapt to the unique demands of rural clinics and the growing burden of AIDS. Visit book's website find out more, view photographs, and read reviews.

New Writing

Robyn is currently working on a second book about a group of maximum security prisoners in South Africa who have adopted AIDS orphans. The men, most imprisoned for murder or manslaughter, have transformed the lives of the destitute children they support, and in doing so have begun transforming their own lives. Incarcerated in the most secure prison in the country, among other initiatives, they have started highly successful clothes making and gardening projects, and begun sitting their high school exams. Many say that in supporting the orphans, they feel they are in some small way helping to make up for not being good fathers to their own children. Their stories are appalling, inspiring and heart wrenching. Recently, Mothers for All has also started a project in the prison. Read more about their work at the Group of Hope website.