Listen to the Wind by Susan L. Roth with Greg Mortenson

Listen to the Wind, written by  Susan L. Roth in colloboration with Greg Mortenson, is subtitled The Story of Dr. Greg & Three Cups of Tea and it tells the story of how Greg Mortenson traveled to Pakistan to climb a mountain and ended up building a school for children in Pakistan. The story is told from the point of view of the children in Pakistan.

Susan L. Roth also did the illustrations and they are great!  There is an interesting explanation of them in the back of the book, along with some photos of Dr. Greg and the children and the construction of the school.

I just learned that Listen to the Wind is the children's version of an adult version book titled Three Cups of Tea and that there is also a young adult version of the book.  Susan L. Roth had nothing to do with these versions.

We've read this one a couple of times and Anna enjoys it more each time.  It's given us a chance to sneak in some social studies learning by getting out our maps and checking out where Pakistan is and by talking about how things are different in other countries.  We also really enjoy Susan Roth's illustrations, which are all done by cutting and tearing and pasting and gluing.  I definitely see us trying that art method sometime in the future.

I didn't know until I went to find links for this post that there has recently, as recent as last month, been some controversy over the truthfulness of Greg Mortenson's accounts in his books and also over his handling of the funds for Greg Mortenson's charity organization.  Many of the concerns are outlined in a CBS 60 minutes program about Greg Morgenson.  I was saddened to discover this controversy and wondered if I should post about the book because of it but I decided to go ahead anyway.  Anna and I really did enjoy the book and the additional learning that resulted from it.  Now I get to use it for even more learning by talking about how you don't always believe everything you read but you take the good out of whatever you can and you just leave the rest.