The Camel Bookmobile

The Camel Bookmobile is a novel by Masha Hamilton about a woman named Fiona Sweeney, or Fi, who leaves her family behind to travel to Kenya, on a quest to make a difference in the lives of those in need by creating a traveling library. Though Fi is passionate about bringing Western classics to the semi-nomadic, illiterate peoples of the rural African bush, she soon finds that she has just as much to learn as they do about the complexities of the world.

Fiona Sweeney wants to make a difference in the world, and her family and loved ones know it. Nevertheless, even they are shocked when Fi comes to them with her plan – she is going to move to Kenya with a stash of donated books to operate a bookmobile in the rural stretches of the semi-nomadic African bush. Following her dream to make literature and culture accessible to the mostly illiterate people of Kenya, she gathers together a small library of Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain to bring with her across the ocean.

When Fi arrives in Kenya, however, her bookmobile is met with mixed responses. In order to keep the bookmobile operational, Fi has some strict policies; the most stringent is that failure to return a book to the bookmobile will result in the entire village losing bookmobile privileges. Though Fiona runs the bookmobile with compassion, she quickly learns that she doesn't really understand the people she is trying to help – her Western values and their values don't match up; they don't find the same value in the books that have shaped her ideology.



In one town, in particular, a drama unfolds revealing a stark divide. In Mididima, a small community of farmers, some people are bookmobile fanatics – others see the bookmobile as an American-run program that will strip them of their traditional culture, bringing the horrors of the modern world along with it. Fi connects with two young people, in particular, in Mididima; Kanika, a girl who believes that her future rests in her ability to access the bookmobile's resources, and artist and community outcast Taban, often called Scar Face, who refuses to return his books to Fiona's collection.

Sticking to her guns, Fiona refuses to return to Mididima with the bookmobile until Taban returns his books. She does, however, decide to travel without the library to the small community in order to talk to Taban and retrieve the many books he borrowed. However, upon her return to the town, Fiona finds herself in the middle of a hot debate between old-timers and the next generation about the values of the bookmobile, and whether anyone wants Fiona to return.

Fiona also finds herself entrenched in personal dramas beyond the future of the bookmobile, including the differences between Kanika and Taban, and the complicated love triangle that has formed between Matani, a progressive teacher in the community, his wife, Jwahir, who considers herself deeply traditional, and Jwahir's new lover, who happens to also be the artist Taban's father.



The Camel Bookmobile is based on the real-life Camel Mobile Library in Kenya. Hamilton uses her experience as a journalist to describe the struggles of acclimating to Kenyan life as an American outsider, and the realities of life in small Kenyan communities for those who are born there and want to stay there, and those striving to find a place for themselves in the world beyond Mididima.

Masha Hamilton is the author of five novels: What Changes Everything, 31 Hours, The Camel Bookmobile, The Distance Between Us, and Staircase of a Thousand Steps. A journalist and world traveler, she is the founder of two international literacy organizations, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women's Writing Project. The Camel Bookmobile was a 2007 Booksense pick.