The Camel Bookmobile

St Just Monday Morning Reading Group 29th April 2024.

The Camel Bookmobile. Masha Hamilton.

Good points about this book, we thought, were that it was easily readable, thought-provoking, had a somewhat unusual setting, and painted a good picture of the village community in rural Kenya.

Unfortunately though, quite a few readers had a problem with the book which outweighed any of these positives, and this was the presumption of the author in thinking that she could write about this topic. The story of an American librarian travelling to rural Kenya to bring books to the villagers in order to promote literacy, seemed to us a very outdated idea, overly simplistic and equating to cultural imperialism. Who is qualified to judge between one culture and another, when one depends upon the written word and another upon oral historical tradition going back numerous centuries? Why should anyone assume that the one is better than the other? Had anyone asked the villagers what they wanted, if anything, and how should it be delivered? Instead of considering these questions, it looked as if the library outreach project described had merely put together a fairly random selection of books and distributed them, on loan (which was also a culturally questionable concept), to a community who hadn’t asked for them and found them puzzling at best.

One reader pointed out that a great deal more could have been made of this book by further exploration of the issues in it, for instance, the process by which children learn to read, and what might happen if westerners were introduced to the Kenyan villagers’ simple nomadic lifestyle.

Another considered that the depiction of ‘librarians’ in this book, as people running an under-researched and ill-advised book-loan programme without proper support or preparation, does the profession very few favours.

Our group saw some things to think about in this book, and one or two to admire (and it did bring about an interesting discussion), but on the whole it did not make a good impression.

As a Librarian, as soon as I saw this book I was intrigued. It is a work of fiction, but is inspired by the real camel bookmobile. As well as being enjoyable, it was a thought provoking read addressing the issue of whether, or not, it is a good idea to introduce literacy and literature to - in this case - an African village. Add in a little bit of love and suspense and you have an original, worthwhile read. I recommend it to all Librarians and anyone who thinks books are the answer to the world's problems!