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USA Today – April 12, 2007 -- 'Bookmobile' drives
home African life -- By Carol Memmott -- The Camel Bookmobile
is a novel, but its inspiration is an African library program that
delivers books on the backs of camels to impoverished nomadic tribes
in Kenya. Like Kabul Beauty School, Bookmobile is also the story of
an American woman who finds new meaning in her own life while
helping others. The fictional Fiona Sweeney, a mild librarian living
in Brooklyn, sets off to Kenya in hopes of bringing literacy and a
connection to the modern world to Kenya's poor. But not everyone is
grateful. Traditionalists fear the books will damage tribal
lifestyles that have existed for thousands of years and cause
members to yearn for a mostly unobtainable lifestyle...
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Entertainment Weekly – April 6, 2007 (B+ review)
-- Hamilton, Masha. The Camel Bookmobile. HarperCollins. Apr.
2007 -- Friends of Fiona Sweeney, an idealistic New York librarian,
think Fi’s new project – a mobile library delivering books to remote
parts of Kenya- is slightly batty. So do many Kenyans. But just as
Fi begins to make progress in the tiny settlement of Mididima, where
she meets a bright girl hungry for guidance, a scandal involving
missing books exposes powerful rifts within the village. The novel
starts unsteadily; Fi sounds like a parody of an earnest...
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Bookpage – April 2007 -- Dromedaries and overdue
books -- By Kristy Kiernan -- Masha Hamilton’s compelling third
novel, the Camel Bookmobile, leaves no room for doubt: Books are
essential. Cookbooks, novels, parenting books—they all matter to
Fiona “Fi” Sweeney, a librarian from Brooklyn searching for
fulfillment atop a bookladen camel in the arid and dangerous bush of
Kenya. Tiny, far-flung villages populated by nomadic tribes, largely
forgotten and neglected by the greater population of a more modern
Africa, welcome the bookmobile and Fi with a combination of
curiosity and wary distrust of Westerners’ belief that the rest of
the world needs guidance. That division is most evident in the small
farming community of Mididima, and it is here that the entire
program is put in danger...
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Library Journal Starred Review -- March 1, 2007 --
Hamilton, Masha. The Camel Bookmobile. HarperCollins. Apr. 2007.
c.320p. ISBN 0-06-117348-7 [ISBN 978-0-06-117348-6]. $24.95. F --
New York City librarian Fiona Sweeney has taken an unusual
assignment in Kenya—running a bookmobile service powered by camel
and serving isolated, seminomadic villages like Mididima, where
teenaged library customer Kanika lives with her grandmother, Neema.
Taban, a young man severely scarred as a toddler by a hyena, is
shunned by most of the community, but he and Kanika share a
friendship and a sweet anticipation of Sweeney's every visit. Matani,
Mididima's schoolmaster, is a champion of the service, but even he
can't do anything when several missing books threaten the village's
reputation and set off a chain of events...
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Booklist Starred Review – February 15, 2007 --
Hamilton, Masha. The Camel Bookmobile. -- Yes, there really is such
a thing as a camel bookmobile, and the image of unwieldy beasts
laden with book-filled boxes provided inspiration for novelist
Hamilton (The Distance Between Us, 2004) to compose a lush
celebration of the productive—and destructive—power of the written
word. Languishing in a dead-end job in a Brooklyn library, Fiona
Sweeney, 36, feels time is passing her by. So when the opportunity
arises to travel to Africa to manage an unorthodox mobile library,
Fi jumps at the chance to influence a culture of nomadic people
whose existence is dependent upon more basic human requirements,
such as water, food, and shelter. With everything from Seuss to
Shakespeare, Fi’s regular deliveries of books elate the village
women and children but intimidate tribal elders...
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Publishers Weekly – January 29, 2007 -- The
Camel Bookmobile MASHA HAMILTON. HarperCollins, $24.95 (320p) ISBN
978-0-06-117348-6 -- 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...
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