Tip and Spot

About the Book

In the days when Africa was still wild, the two cats Tip and Spot are accidentally left behind when their human family moves from their farm on the foothills of Mt Elgon, Kenya, to Kibomet, another farm near the village of Kitale. Tip and spot decide they have to leave Mt Elgon and try to find their human family. Scared and uncertain they travel through the African bush. On the way they meet a mongoose, are mobbed by weaver birds, get washed away in a flood, spend a night in an old stork’s nest, meet a helpful giraffe, get injured by stampeding Impala, and taken in by friendly meerkats. They agree to help the meerkats fight a rival clan and end up the heroes of the day. Reaching the village of Kitale they are attacked by dogs and led astray by a nasty street wise cat, Sneakers, who nearly gets them killed stealing human food. Finally a nicer acquaintance, Stripes, gets them on their way to Kibomet where they rejoin their surprised and delighted human family.

About the Author

Norman Nabutola was born on the Kenya-Uganda border when it was still a frontier. Raised and named by missionaries, he bridges the divide between the African and Western mind. He roamed the Elgon forests as child and saw many human emotions in the animals, large and small, that he encountered there. Sometimes, they exhibited a sixth sense beyond human experience. These two cats that traveled alone across fifteen miles of unknown bush illustrate the reality that some things are unknown to our science, inexplicable to our understanding. Norman puts a human face on this.