Three Cups of Tea – Young Readers Version by By Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Puffin, January 22, 2009

Recommended readers – 8+

Cautions: Topics of death and kidnapping are covered

Description from publisher:

Young Adult Version – Three Cups of Tea
One Man’s Journey to Change the World, One Child At A Time
By Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Adapted By Sarah Thomson and Foreword By Dr. Jane Goodall
Includes an interview with Amira Mortenson (age 12), Daughter of Greg Mortenson.

In Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time , Greg Mortenson, and journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the journey that led Mortenson from a failed 1993 attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully establish schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to promote peace with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote communities in central Asia. Three Cups of Tea is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time. See the website – http://www.threecupsoftea.com/ for reader’s guide and other resources.

Kiwi Magazine Review

The New York Times bestselling book Three Cups of Tea has been adapted into both a chapter book for ages 8 and older, as well as a picture book for younger children (called Listen to the Wind). This heartwearming story of Greg Mortenson is a modern-day parable of promises kept, hope rejuvenated and one person moving mountains. The story is simplified slightly to tell this story at the level of the young readers, but it still retains the factual timeline and many details, including Greg’s kidnapping and the deaths of his close friends. The most interesting parts of the book for young readers are the photographs and the Q&A (at the end of the book) by Greg’s daughter Amira, who is 12. She is intelligent, glib and honest about being away from her dad so frequently, the similarities and differences between school children in the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and her personal goals to continue her father’s mission to serve others.

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