I'd heard about the first book written for the adult reading audience, Three Cups of Tea and often thought "I need to read that book". Instead, I purchased the Young Adult Readers Edition to read and review on A Garden of Books.
I read the entire book yesterday evening, I was just entranced with the story of Greg Mortenson and his loving devotion to building schools for the children of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The story begins with Greg making a trip to Pakistan to climb one of the mountains there named K2. After Greg's sisters death, he had wanted to do something in honor of her by placing her necklace on top of this mountain, but he got lost. I guess that could have been the end of that story, instead he wandered into a village and was taken care of by a family that introduced him to a need that would become his life endeavor and mission---building schools for kids.
I thought this was a great book! In so many ways!
It is a book that can be used in the classroom to introduce students to a Muslim nation, the middle east, poverty and illiteracy, war.
It is a book that introduces kids to what can become their future as well--humanitarian work. As an adult I wonder, "what can I do?" This book is an encouragement to think not just about what is going on in our own city or state or country, but what other peoples needs are and that we can really do something to help. When I learn about another people group it gets my mind out of the box so to speak. The world is much bigger than my own back yard!
I loved Greg's honesty in telling his story, he shares the mistakes he made, the gambles he made, and patient hope in fulfilling the goals.
Greg was willing to sacrifice much in his life in order to fulfill his promise to build schools, he is a man of integrity and certainly true grit.
Included in the book is a foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall, an interview with Greg's daughter Amira, a time-line, glossary, list of characters, discussion questions, information about
Pennies for Peace, other books available, there are also many photographs throughout the book (several in color).
http://www.threecupsoftea.com/http://www.threecupsoftea.com/about-the-book/three-cups-of-tea-youth-editions/http://www.amazon.com/Three-Cups-Tea-Young-Readers/dp/0142414123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222723107&sr=1-1Paperback $8.99
Kindle $7.99
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Three-Cups-of-Tea/Greg-Mortenson/e/9780142414125/pwb=1&Paperback $8.81
Nook $7.99
http://www.penniesforpeace.org/ http://www.ikat.org/ http://gregmortenson.blogspot.com/http://www.davidoliverrelin.com/Blissful Reading!
Annette
Review by Katy
This is a pretty amazing story.
Three Cups of Tea is the true story of Greg Mortenson, who upon failing to summit K2 stumbles quite ill and emaciated into Korphe, a remote village in Pakistan. The people of this village nurse him back to health, and he falls in love with them. During his stay, he asks to visit the school, and is brought to a large field where 84 children were writing in the dirt with sticks. No teacher, no books, just the children studying as best they could. The village leader, Haji Ali, explained that they couldn't afford to pay a teacher, so a teacher comes to the village occasionally, and the children study on their own the rest of the time. Greg promises to come back to Korphe and build the village a school. And he does.
There is so much to say about the work that Mortenson does. He is the director of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), which (as of 2007) has established more than 61 schools in rural areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. After he learns that providing girls with at least a 5th grade education will help prevent infant mortality, population explosion, and overall health and sanitation of a village, he began focusing more towards (though not exclusively) girl's education. He also helps fund projects for clean water and women's halls (where all the local women can get together to sew, etc). He figures that with the unhealthy water that they have now, one in three children don't even make it to their first birthday in these villages. You can't educate someone that isn't there.
I had the opportunity to hear Mortenson speak at a local event. He seems like an honest, humble man doing what he can to help people he loves. He really doesn't seem to be in this for the "glory." He showed a picture of a school, and said that he was proud of this school because it had taken almost 8 years to convince the local leaders to allow it to be built. He is in it for the long term and he is willing to learn the customs and mores of the area in order to build a school that they will be proud of and use.
Mortenson also had a lot of interesting facts about the importance of education in these areas. He said that people that decide to become suicide bombers are without hope. They see no other way of succeeding in life. By providing an education to people in rural areas, they are given some hope.
The one thing that I didn't like about this book is the writing. First of all, it's written in third person, which is not what I was expecting, considering the main character is listed as the first author.
But, even without that little complaint, the writing really isn't that great. It sometimes takes a long time to say simple things and that can get really frustrating. There are also a lot of non-English words used throughout, and not all of them are fully explained. Possibly they are terms that everyone should know, but I didn't, and I got tired of trying to figure some of them out.
However, even with this small(ish) complaint, I highly recommend the
Three Cups of Tea. It gives you lots of food for thought and would make a great discussion book for a book club.
