Reader’s review
'Under The Camelthorn Tree is a breathtaking memoir written with an abundance of wit, honesty and love. Over the course of a page I found myself weeping, giggling, inspired, challenged, but never lectured to. Kate's humour is infectious, her honesty and vulnerability emboldening and her language precise in conjuring the sights, sounds and smells of her unique journey' - Harry Michell
A sort of Life Force personified, a whirlwind of love and motherhood and science; beautiful woman, brutally true, impossibly brave, impossibly stylish, just plain bloody impossible. Self-taught in science, this poet of the Okavango home-schooled - right through to good universities - four remarkable children in a remote camp surrounded by individually known, radio-tracked lions. After tirelessly working to rehabilitate Botswana's rape victims, her own horrific rape and its aftermath threatened to destroy her life and the family idyll but . . . well, read the whole beautiful book to the end. You'll never see another memoir like this (Richard Dawkins)
Reader’s review
I've just read your book and I have to tell you as a fellow non fiction African writer and mum that I have not enjoyed and been as hooked to a book on Africa in years. Congratulations doesn't really cut it. I know what it takes to be so honest in a book and it can't have been easy. I loved it. I read it in the Serengeti where I've just been leading a safari for a couple of weeks and have recommended it to all my guests.
Reader’s review
Bursting with humour, intelligence and fierce humanity, Under the Camelthorn Tree takes you on a breathtaking journey: anthropological and personal. It is an unflinchingly brave, generous book filled with the wisdom of one who has seen both the beauty and the darkness the world has to give - Sophie Dahl
Reader’s review
A must-read, haunting book.
Kate Nicholls and her five young children, Emily, Travers, Angus, Maisie and Oakley (aged just eleven-months-old) moved to Botswana in 1994. As a biologist, Kate wanted to work with lions and decided that taking the children would broaden their horizons, life in the bush would be harsh, but give them something very few other children ever get to experience, living among wild animals.
When Kate first moved to Maun, she started working with a group called War Against Rape. Botswana is one of the countries ravaged by HIV/AIDS. The population had the misconceived idea that raping a child could cure a man from the deadly disease, and as a result, the group were called in to help these extremely traumatised survivors as well as many women.
Her work with the lions makes for fascinating reading. Living in the bush, with a machete close at hand to sort out deadly snakes, will live in my memory. It is the one phobia that I have of the bush. I also loved the elephants who visited the campsite. They lived in harmony with the family.
Kate's homeschooled her children. These four words cannot describe the impact she made on their lives. They have all far exceeded all expectations in their chosen careers. All attended university. All have confidence and abilities that bounce off every page of the book. They all knew how to handle a Land Rover, change a tyre, and from a very early age were able to drive. Tracking and identifying lions were part of their daily lives.
There is a very dark side to the book. Kate’s rape and her PTSD. She describes it with brutal honesty and how it affected her for years after she left Botswana and the impact her behaviour, as a result of the rape had on her children and partner, Pieter. It is part of her story and part of her life. What is more important is that she's written about it, and by writing and sharing this traumatic experience, she might have just helped someone else take that first step towards surviving as well.
Our world would be a very dull place without people like Kate Nichols. She left the comfort of her very established life in England to follow a dream; working and studying lions. As a result, her five children were homeschooled under a Camelthorn tree, where they not only had possibly the best education possible but learnt life-lessons that most children nor adults ever get the chance to experience.