The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, tells a story about the life of an Afghan man named Amir. He grew up in the city of Kabul, located in eastern Afghanistan, living with his father, family servant, and the servant’s son, Hassan. Despite vast ethnic and religious differences, Hassan and Amir grew up together as close friends. As political tensions rose throughout the novel, Amir and Hassan's friendship struggled. After Amir passively witnessed Hassan getting raped, their friendship deteriorated and they were driven apart from one another. Throughout the novel, Amir grew up and fled Afghanistan with his father to seek shelter in America. When he returned to his home country to visit a family friend, he found Afghanistan to be a much different country than what he remembered from his childhood. The novel reflects many events and situations that took place in Afghanistan during the Twentieth Century such as discrimination, the soviet invasion, and the presence of the Taliban.
I think that The Kite Runner would be a great book to read in a classroom because I think that the characters, plot, setting, and style of the story make it a well written book. This book is told from the perspective of Amir, a young boy who experienced the hardships of Afghanistan first handedly. Throughout the novel, the reader can see that Amir regrets a lot of his actions and you can tell this based upon the thoughts he has after an experience as well as the thought and feelings he debates during hard times. For example, when Hassan was getting beat up, Amir thought to himself that he wanted to help but was too afraid. The reader knows that Amir wanted to help, even though he didn’t actually physically break up the fight. I think that the plot of this book is also very good and it flows nicely. There is a lot of action build within the pages of this book and many of the chapters are suspenseful and scary. Since it is told from the view of a child, the reader feels just as scared as a young child would feel experiencing the upheaval in Afghanistan. The setting of this story is really unique because it takes place in many different countries. However, each place is well defined and the descriptions that the author uses for each setting ads credibility to the novel as well as depth to the story. There is also a mixture of different beliefs within the different settings. For example, in Kabul, individuals held American values, while in America, some of Amir’s family held Afghan values. This book is set in the midst of the disruption in Afghanistan and the author does a great job explaining the different values of the individuals in each setting in the novel. Lastly, I think that the style and language within this book enforce the story greatly. For example, when talking about the different races, the author uses harsh words that individuals actually used during that time. When Amir was talking about a book of his fathers, he said “It also said some things I did know, like that people called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys. I had heard some of the kids in the neighborhood yell those names to Hassan” (Hosseini, p.25). The book that Amir was reading as well as the people in Afghanistan used harsh words such as “mice-eating” and “flat-nosed” to describe people of Hassan’s culture of Hazaras. This use of language ads depth to the story and gives the reader the perspective of the way people spoke during that time. Overall, I thought this book was very powerful and should be read in either 10th or 11th grade. This book has some scary scenes, violence, and complex ideas that could be confusing or frightening for younger children, however it shares valuable lessons and provides a unique perspective that would be good to discuss with a group of students. |