Book excerpt: The five McNeice children lived a conventional life in the Cotstwolds until, in l995, their mother Kate, a biologist, seized the opportunity to go and study lions in Botswana. Travers, Emily and Angus, the three middle children, take it in turns to recount their adventures in the Okavango Delta, one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth, where they must quickly learn to fetch water, dig their own toilet, and discover which creepy-crawlies can kill them. In a Land Rover sometimes driven by 12-year-old Travers, they track prides of lions across hundreds of miles of bush. Their classroom an open hut, they take scientific notes and record their observations of the wild life around them - zebra, giraffe, elephant, impala and much more. Written with a wonderful vividness and immediacy, this is a fascinating book for all animal-lovers, enhanced by colour photographs.