KABUL, MAY 28 (DNA) – The door of the blue bus slides open and dozens of children excitedly bound up the steps, eager to get their hands on hard-to-find books in Kabul’s first mobile library.

Named Charmaghz — the Dari for walnut, which is associated with logic in Afghanistan because the nut resembles a brain — the converted public bus is hard to miss as it winds through the dusty streets of the Afghan capital.

The library-on-wheels offers pupils and street kids free access to children’s books, which are in short supply at public schools and libraries.

It also offers one of the few spaces outside the home that children can use in a city where fear is increasingly keeping residents behind closed doors.