Book Review: Camel Rider by Prue Mason

Title: Camel Rider
Author: Prue Mason
Publisher: Charlesbridge, Watertown, Massachusetts
Copyright: 2004
Pages: 204
ISBN: 978-1-58089-315-2
Genre: Children's fiction

A twelve-year-old Australian boy moves to the Middle Eastern city of Abudai when his father accepts a job with an airline. After a few years, Adam enjoys life there. He lives on a compound and has friends of various nationalities. His parents, however, plan to send him back to Australia for school. But when a bomb drops on Abudai and begins a three-day war, everyone's plans change.

Everyone on Adam's compound flees to escape the war. Adam is upset they've left his dog back at the compound. When the group stops at a gas station, Adam hides until everyone leaves. But he's pitifully prepared for a trek back to Abudai. Little food and water, a nearly dead cell phone, and limited knowledge of Arabic leave Adam with few options. In the meantime, he meets a Bangladeshi boy who's been abandoned in the desert.

Both boys need to return to Abudai, but the language barrier demands that they find other ways to communicate and work together-especially when two men chase down the boys. Adam can't tell what they want, but their shouts and weapons, plus Walid's fear, demonstrate that the two men don't have anything friendly in mind.

Readership for Camel Rider

Since the two main characters are boys and the story is pretty adventurous, Camel Rider may appeal more easily to boys. Parents and teachers sometimes have more trouble finding books boys will enjoy reading.

Because of the age of the boys, I would estimate the primary readership to be kids aged nine to twelve.

Positive Aspects of Camel Rider

Mason has worked several positive things into her story. Most notably, she's told a story of two boys from vastly different cultures, yet they still manage to cooperate in a way that brings about the best interests for both of them. As a result, Camel Rider promotes understanding and cooperation among people of different cultures.

Furthermore, the close-up look at different cultures provides a great learning opportunity for young readers. Learning about other countries, people groups, and cultures shows kids that people have more than one way of doing things. People believe different things. Yet we all have some things in common. And there is no particular country that is best, that does everything right, that is the center of the world.

A Role Model?

However, Adam is not exactly a character I'd want any children I know to emulate. Sure, every character should have positive and negative aspects, just like real people. Besides working with the Bangladeshi boy, Adam shows compassion for his dog.

But in my mind, his negatives outweigh his positives. On more than one occasion, we see Adam blatantly disobeying his parents. We see his mother displeased with him in the beginning, but we never actually see his disobedience addressed. Nor does he ever seem sorry for what he's done. I don't think this is a healthy message to send to children.

Other Drawbacks of Camel Rider

I admit that I don't read a lot of secular fiction. But I was still shocked to discover how much profanity and offensive language was in a book for children of this age. I counted over twenty instances of profanities, curses, potentially offensive language, and flippant uses of the names of God and Christ. Cleaner language would not have harmed the story.

Most troubling, however, was the quote from Kahlil Gibran at the beginning of the book. This quote accurately represents and defines the more subtle message Camel Rider carries. It claims that people of different religions are really all "children of one faith" and that these religions are "fingers of the loving hand of one Supreme Being" (6).

As a Christian, this is not a message I agree with, and it's not an idea I would want any kids I know to regard as truth. This isn't to say that there's no place for learning about other religions or loving people who think differently. I believe Christians are called to love everyone. But loving doesn't mean agreeing.

Note: Charlesbridge provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.