The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)

I have read a lot of these types of books and this one is one of the best.

Read this book a long time ago but wanted my own copy. My daughter is named Elspeth and I got it as a gift to her. Years ago this was a special on PBS in this area. Another little girl in the area also ended up with the name Elspeth as a result.

This is a wonderful book about Africa and I wish the DVD from PBS was still available.

In 1913 Elspeth Huxley moved to Kenya with her parents, who wanted to start a coffee plantation. They stayed until her father went to fight for England in the First World War. This book recounts this part of their lives. After the war was over the family returned to Kenya and Elspeth stayed until leaving for college as a woman-recounted in the book The Mottled Lizard. This book is a really entertaining read about their life in Kenya from the viewpoint of a young girl. Her mother is a comman sense housewife who runs the family and her father is a nice chap who has a lot of big dreams-most of them impossible to fullfill. We also get to meet a fair number of natives,, and their interactions the English settlers are the most interesting parts of the book. They spent thousand of years building their culture when, out of the blue strangers came to their land, took some of it, and built their homes on it. Sort of like if E.T. and his group came down and built their homes in Central Park. This book does an excellant job of describing the natives and the wildlife of Kenya(before most of it was killed and the rest kept in parks). I give it my highest recommendation.

This book captures the authors childhood with descriptive and loving language. A precious treasure for generations to come.

This remarkable memoir of life as a child in early Colonial Kenya gives us, the readers, a unique opportunity to experience the development of relationships among people so different that in this day and time cannot happen. I had to cast off my desire for political correctness, or unhappiness with the English superiority and racism, and see this work as it was-a moment in time. Indeed it was and we can all be richer for reading this story and learning, and even in understanding why freedom when it happened finally in Kenya, was both painful for white Kenyans and exhilarating for black Kenyans. For those of us ho have been long term guests in East Africa, the descriptions of sights, sounds, and smells are as fresh as if we were right there under the Flame tree.

Set in early 20th Century Kenya, this book reminded me of Beryl Markham's West With the Night, or even Out of Africa. Eslpeth Huxley retells her childhood growing up in a family of English settlers, who, new to Africa, rather naively purchased some land unseen and nevertheless somehow make a go of it. As an only child she is often left to her own devices and makes friends with people of all ages and cultures - the Kikuyu, the Maasai, and the few settlers around them, including a grumpy old Boer. I loved this book. I loved how the characters come alive through the observations of a young girl and how this allows us to observe the colonial lifestyle of those times through they eyes of both blacks and whites, as the author identifies with and gives voice to everyone she encounters. And I loved the brief appearance of a doomed romance, almost so fleeting to be missed entirely. A great piece of storytelling for an excellent glimpse into colonial Africa.

I loved this and have ordered the two sequels. It has wonderful descriptions of Kenya in the British colonial period and sensitive depictions of the tribal peoples the family interacted with. The beautiful descriptions of the flora and fauna are well worth reading. This is a lovely memoir.

I first read this book as a teenager, a long time ago. I read it again this month during a holiday in Kenya, and was thrilled to discover that it was indeed as beautifully written, as engaging, as full of love and compassion and detail, and as balanced as I remember. Huxley is very true to how she experienced things as a child, and so as a narrator never becomes more 'knowing' than she would have been at the time. Indeed, her lack of 'knowing' makes the book much richer, as it enables her to present the perceptions and interpretations she received from her African companions as entirely equal to those she received from the white settlers and her parents.This is an exceptional memoir and well worth reading as a literary work as well as for those interested in this part of African and colonial history.

I am reading this 50 years after I first read it. I enjoyed it then and to be reacquainted with it after all these years was a pleasure. The narrative is superb and the character descriptions are tremendous. It takes you on a journey through colonialism with all its highs and lows. You may agree or not but this is an historical narrative of a time that is long since passed with all the highs and lows beautifully described from someone who was actually there. Its an easy read and thoroughly recommended

At last I got round to reading this book and very glad I am too! It is beautifully written with just enough landscape description to create a visual picture of this part of Africa - but not enough to send you to sleep. The tribal peoples are presented with dignity and humour and the inevitable rivalry/competition between the Masai and the Kikuyu is skilfully shown. As is the same rivalry/competition between the Dutch/Boers/English. The child floats effortlessly between all the different cultures, observing without criticism but with tremendous humour. This is a lovely snapshot of Kenya before the first world war and I am looking forward to reading the sequel - The Mottled Lizard.

Anyone with a connection to Africa in the last 50 years will recognise the humour and the perceptive descriptions of characters in this book. Elspeth Huxley's memoir of her idyllic, wild and dangerous childhood on a Kenyan coffee farm seem to come from not just another age, but another planet. An absolute gem.

I’m astonished at how callous these people are at land grabbing and then normalising it with books. Native Kenyans suffered greatly at the hands of colonisers and their effects are still felt to this day.