Tim Bascom
Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia (2006)
Author: Tim Bascom
Genre: Nonfiction (Memoir)
Book Summary:
Tim Bascom moved to rural Ethiopia with his parents and two brothers when he was
three years old. His parents were missionaries - his father was a doctor and his
mother taught various classes for the natives. Tim lived with his parents for the
first three year mission in Ethiopia, and then went to boarding school there when
the family returned after a year in the States. Their second mission was cut short
after two years. While the Bascom boys had few contacts with the Ethiopians, the
country and the local culture made a big impression on him.
Geographical Setting: Christian missions in Ethiopia
Time Period: 1960s
Appeal Characteristics:
This winner of the 2005 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize for nonfiction
is a very readable autobiography. It is fast-paced with short chapters and
quite a bit of dialogue. The Ethiopian setting is a very important part of the
story, as is the mission setting. None of the characters are particularly well-
developed, which is understandable since the story is told through the eyes of a
young boy. The age of the narrator (roughtly 3 to 9 years old) is important -
this would be a very different story if it were about an older child or an adult.
There is a definite Christian element, but it is Christianity and religion in
general as seen through the eyes of a young boy. He sees the child-like and
joyful faith of the natives and compares it to the drier, stiffer religion of
his parents. There are no footnotes and no bibliography, but there is a short
list of "Further Reading."
Read-alikes: Those interested in the experiences of Western children growing up in Africa
should try The Zanzibar Chest, by Aidan Hartley (memoirs of the son of
British colonial administrators in Kenya) or Gods of Noonday, by Elaine
Neil Orr (the memoirs of the daughter of missionairies in Nigeria). Some Far
and Distant Place: Muslim-Christian Encounters Through the Eyes of a Child,
by Jonathan S. Addleton is the memoirs of the son of Baptist missioniaries in
Pakistan. Like Bascom, these three authors grew up overseas in the 1960s and
1970s. For a different perspective on growing up in Ethiopia, read the memoirs
of an Ethiopian boy told in Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian
Boyhood, by Nega Mezlekia. For the biography of an African princess whose
parents were killed in tribal warfare and who was raised in Victorian England,
try At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England
by Walter Dean Myers. Journals of Jim Elliot by Jim Elliot, edited by
Elisabeth Elliot is the complete and unabridged journals of a young missionary
to Ecuador who was murdered there in 1956. China Journal 1889-1900: An
American Missionary Family During the Boxer Rebellion : With the Letters and
Diaries of Eva Jane Price and Her Family by Eva Jane Price - I really don't
know what to add to the title, except that this, too, is nonfiction. If you'd
like to try some fiction about being a Westerner in rural parts of the rest
of the world, try Whiteman by Tony D'Souza, the story of a young American
working to bring potable water to a rural West African village. Whiteman
is fiction and has much more political, cultural and religious tension and
some sex. The Undiscovered Country by Samantha Gillison is a fictional
story of a family, including seven-year-old Taylor, who go to Papua New Guinea
to do medical research in the jungle. The story is told more from the mother's
point of view than the child's.
Red Flags: none
|top|
|
