November is National Family Literacy Month. The Letter Blocks blog is dedicated not just to books for young readers, but to interactions between children and their parents or guardians involving literature; so what better place to discuss the topic of family literacy? 

It’s very easy to think of family literacy as fostering the kind of environment in which children learn to read. However, there are many families in this country and in other parts of the world where literacy may pass from child to parent. This is particularly true in situations where a second language is involved, or where children are given educational opportunities their parents were not.

I just finished reading the young reader’s edition of Three Cups of Tea. This national bestseller deals with climber Greg Mortenson’s mission to build schools and educational opportunities for children in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some of the most moving aspects of the book involve illiterate parents and elders trying to create opportunities for their children to be able to read. In 1993, Mortenson got lost descending K2, the second highest mountain in the world. He ended up in a Pakistani village where he was given water and food despite the village’s poverty. Touched by the sight of the village’s children drawing their lessons in the dirt with no walls or a roof, he promised to build the people of Korphe a school. Little did he know that this encounter would change the course of his life.

 
The young reader’s edition of Three Cups of Tea adapts the story into simpler, more accessible language and length. It includes lots of pictures, color inserts, maps, a timeline, a glossary, and an interview with Greg’s 12-year-old daughter about how his work has impacted her life. A fourth or fifth grader would feel comfortable reading this book, but it also makes an excellent read-aloud title for the whole family.

For me, two messages resonated most from reading Three Cups of Tea. One was a sense of profound reverence for education, something many people in this country take for granted. In the dedication speech for a school given just after the events of 9/11, Syed Abbas, the chief of the village of Kuardu in Pakistan, said, “Today is a day that you children will remember forever and tell your grandchildren…. Today, from the darkness of illiteracy the light of education shines bright.” The other was the suggestion that there might be some connection between literacy and peace. Mortenson’s work has also taken him to Afghanistan, where the United States is currently involved in conflict. He said, “If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs.”
 
While the cynic in me knows that conflict resolution is far more complicated than giving a child an education and the ability to read, the reader in me loves the idea that Mortenson’s schools—and the books written about them—make a very real difference in the lives of children. Parents should note that there are some descriptions of poverty and warfare, but the majority of the book is focused on the adventure of attempting a feat that many great climbers in the book describe as “much more difficult than climbing K2.”