Humboldt State University and College of the Redwoods embark on their second consecutive Book of the Year partnership with The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini as the 2007 selection.
Humboldt State University and College of the Redwoods embark on their second consecutive Book of the Year partnership with The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini as the 2007 selection.
“I became what I am today at the age of 12, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975,” the novel by the Afghanistan-born author begins. “I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into an alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but its wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last 26 years.”
The Kite Runner is Mr. Hosseini’s first novel, a story of love, betrayal, guilt and redemption against the backdrop of events spanning the back alleys of 1970s Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, to the flea markets of San Jose, where the author settled with his family in 1980.
HSU and CR selected it as Book of the Year based on its relevance, accessibility and the fact “it gives human voice to those individuals caught up in world events,” like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, said Vincent Peloso, Coordinator of CRs Book of the Year project.
Both campuses are encouraging faculty to incorporate The Kite Runner into their fall curriculum and recommend the novel to all students. HSU is organizing a special reading group for members of the HSU, CR and local communities that will begin on Thursday, August 30, at 6:00 p.m. in the Universitys Founders Hall, Room 236.
College of the Redwoods began its Book of the Year Program in 1995 with Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees. Subsequent CR selections included Homer Hickam’s October Sky, Michael Dorris’s Yellow Raft in Blue Water, and Kent Haruf’s Plainsong, among others.
HSU, in a similar program, hosted Greg Sarris, author of Grand Avenue: A Novel in Stories, and featured T.C. Boyles The Tortilla Curtain.
Last year, for the first time, the two campuses combined programs to showcase Ernest J. Gainess A Lesson Before Dying.
During the 2007 fall semester, organizers plan a variety of events and activities focused on some of the themes explored in The Kite Runner. Events will be posted on the Book of the Year web site at http://www.redwoods.edu/events/book-year/.
“Even students whose current reading skills preclude them from enjoying a book like this on their own love this novel,” Mr. Peloso said. “We’re building community, one word, one story, one book at a time.”