In 1964, at the age of three, Tim Bascom is thrust into a world of eucalyptus trees and stampeding baboons when his family moves from the Midwest to Ethiopia. The unflinchingly observant narrator of this memoir reveals his missionary parents' struggles in a sometimes hostile country. Sent reluctantly to boarding school in the capital, young Tim finds that beyond the gates enclosing that peculiar, isolated world, conflict roils Ethiopian society. When secret riot drills at school are followed with an attack by rampaging students near his parents' mission station, Tim witnesses the disintegration of his family's African idyll as Haile Selassie's empire begins to crumble.

Like Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Chameleon Days chronicles social upheaval through the keen yet naive eyes of a child. Bascom offers readers a fascinating glimpse of missionary life, much as Barbara Kingsolver did in The Poisonwood Bible.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 06/14/2006
ISBN: 9780618658695
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.73lbs
Size: 8.61h x 5.42w x 0.63d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 04/24/2006 pg. 49
Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2006 pg. 443
Entertainment Weekly 06/16/2006 pg. 81
Kliatt 09/01/2006 pg. 39