The Camel Bookmobile: A Novel [Paperback]

Masha Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

Fiona Sweeney wants to do something that matters, and she chooses to make her mark in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya. By helping to start a traveling library, she hopes to bring the words of Homer, Hemingway, and Dr. Seuss to far-flung tiny communities where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease. Her intentions are honorable, and her rules are firm: due to the limited number of donated books, if any one of them is not returned, the bookmobile will not return.

But, encumbered by her Western values, Fi does not understand the people she seeks to help. And in the impoverished small community of Mididima, she finds herself caught in the middle of a volatile local struggle when the bookmobile's presence sparks a dangerous feud between the proponents of modernization and those who fear the loss of traditional ways.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hamilton's captivating third novel (after 2004's The Distance Between Us) follows Fiona Sweeney, a 36-year-old librarian, from New York to Garissa, Kenya, on her sincere but naïve quest to make a difference in the world. Fi enlists to run the titular mobile library overseen by Mr. Abasi, and in her travels through the bush, the small village of Mididima becomes her favorite stop. There, Matani, the village teacher; Kanika, an independent, vivacious young woman; and Kanika's grandmother Neema are the most avid proponents of the library and the knowledge it brings to the community. Not everyone shares such esteem for the project, however. Taban, known as Scar Boy; Jwahir, Matani's wife; and most of the town elders think these books threaten the tradition and security of Mididima. When two books go missing, tensions arise between those who welcome all that the books represent and those who prefer the time-honored oral traditions of the tribe. Kanika, Taban and Matani become more vibrant than Fi, who never outgrows the cookie-cutter mold of a woman needing excitement and fulfillment, but Hamilton weaves memorable characters and elemental emotions in artful prose with the lofty theme of Western-imposed "education" versus a village's perceived perils of exposure to the developed world. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Fiona, a New York librarian filled with a sense of adventure and a desire to do good, heads to Kenya to run the camel bookmobile. She has long romanticized Africa, and she arrives determined but naive. Her most remote stop is Mididima, a seminomadic farming village with a makeshift school, led by Matani, who has studied in Nairobi but returned to educate his fellow villagers. Young Kanika, who wants to leave and study as well; the reclusive Scar Boy; and their families are among Fiona's patrons. When Scar Boy doesn't return the books he's borrowed, the overly rigid local librarian threatens to end the Mididima stop. Fiona, Matani, and Kanika each have stake in keeping the bookmobile coming, so they all try to get the boy to return them. However, he has his own compelling reason to keep them. All of the characters take a turn at narrating chapters, allowing readers to understand their place in the story more fully. Ultimately, each one is changed by the bookmobile, but not in ways that they (or we) might expect. Teens can enjoy not only the multicultural aspect of this novel but also the quiet drama and plot twists that impart the differences and similarities among the characters.—Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061173495
• ISBN-13: 978-0061173493
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #820,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Masha Hamilton is the author of four acclaimed novels, most recently 31 Hours (2009), an Indie Choice pick by independent booksellers, which Publisher's Weekly called "gorgeous and complex." "You don't just read this gut-wrenching book; you become part of it in a deep, primal way," wrote StyleSubstanceSoul.com founder Lois Alter Mark. Hamilton is also the founder of two world literacy programs: the Camel Book Drive, begun in 2007 to supply a camel-borne library in northeastern Kenya, and the Afghan Women's Writing Project, begun in 2009 to foster creative and intellectual exchange between Afghan women writers and American women authors and teachers.

Her previous novels include Staircase of a Thousand Steps (2001), a Booksense pick by independent booksellers and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; The Distance Between Us (2004), named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal; and The Camel Bookmobile (2007), also a Booksense pick. Booksense called it an excellent book club selection, and the New York Times said: "Hamilton makes us see how much is really at stake in a poverty-stricken place where every possession carries the weight of significance."

She worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, where she covered the intefadeh, the peace process and the partial Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Then she spent five years in Moscow, where she was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a newspaper column, Postcard from Moscow, and reported for NBC/Mutual Radio. She wrote about Kremlin politics as well as life for average Russians under Gorbachev and Yeltsin during the coup and collapse of the Soviet Union. She reported from Afghanistan in 2004, and returned in 2008. In 2006, she traveled in Kenya to research The Camel Bookmobile and to interview street kids in Nairobi and drought and famine victims in the isolated northeast.

A Brown University graduate, she has been awarded fiction fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She teaches for Gotham Writers' Workshop and has also taught at the 92nd Street Y in New York City and at a number of writers' workshops around the country. She is a licensed shiatsu practitioner and lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Wonderful Idea!!, May 2, 2007

By 

Amy Leemon (North Fond du Lac, WI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Camel Bookmobile (Hardcover)

This book succeeds on many different levels. The storyline is intriguing (imagine books being carried by camel to remote villages in Kenya), there's romance and disappointment, questions on different values in nations and whether its good for one nation to impose its values on another (you'll be thinking about that one for a while),a little mystery and a heroine who means well but manages to learn even while she's trying to educate others.

There really is a camel bookmobile and to read more about it and see photographs, google Camel Book Drive.

This is an exceptional book.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The gift of books is eternal, May 2, 2007

By 

Z Hayes (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Camel Bookmobile (Hardcover)

This is such a lyrical and moving story about the power of books to transform one's life. Fiona Sweeney's efforts in bringing enlightenment and knowledge into the lives of people in the African bush is a story that is poetically beautiful and rings true. I myself remember the bookmobile that used to be the highlight of my young life back in Malaysia. There was a dearth of English books in the school library and to me, the bookmobile represented a window to a wonderful world full of possibilities. Masha Hamilton's book brings back those fond memories for me, and it is a joy to read how books still have the power to transport people, even in the most remote regions of the world, to a whole new world filled with infinite possibilities.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultures Clash In The Camel Bookmobile, May 23, 2007

By 

LKRigel (West Coast USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Camel Bookmobile (Hardcover)

The Camel Bookmobile is the kind of novel that made me love reading in the first place. Fiona Sweeney travels from New York City to Africa to bring books on camels to villages that follow the rains. In this world, books are as threatening as they are liberating, and their mere presence causes a variety of personal reactions in the people the bookmobile "serves." Fi is drawn into these intrigues in little Mididima when she goes to help resolve a crisis over some missing books. The villagers are no blank slates waiting for the miracle of books -- she rides into a hotbed of desire, disappointment, genius, loss, and love.

Masha Hamilton's long experience reporting all over the world informs her work; her novels don't serve up tidy endings. Here she acknowledges the mundane reality that things do fall apart, but it is effort and intention that make the meaning of things. Cultures clash in The Camel Bookmobile, good intentions may be misplaced -- or not. Hamilton shows how seeds of change never grow in neat rows; and though the gardener may not be present at the harvest, it doesn't mean it was futile to lay the plants.