The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter: A Memoir

What kind of Navy officer sits on his ship in the middle of the Mediterranean dreaming of gerbils?

That s the question that Holly Robinson sets out to answer in this warm and rollicking memoir of life with her father, the world s most famous gerbil czar.

Starting with a few pairs of gerbils housed for curiosity s sake in the family s garage, Donald Robinson s obsession with the pocket kangaroo developed into a lifelong passion and second career. Soon the Annapolis-trained Navy commander was breeding gerbils and writing about them for publications ranging from the ever-bouncy Highlights for Children to the erudite Science News. To support his burgeoning business, the family eventually settled on a remote hundred-acre farm with horses, sheep, pygmy goats, peacocks and nearly nine thousand gerbils.

From part-time model for her father s bestselling pet book, How to Raise and Train Pet Gerbils, to full-time employee in the gerbil empire s complex of prefab Sears buildings, Holly was an enthusiastic if often exasperated companion on her father s quest to breed the perfect gerbil. Told with heart, humor, and affection, The Gerbil Farmer s Daughter is Holly s ode to a weird and wonderful upbringing and her truly one-of-a-kind father.