Mortenson, Greg and Roth, Susan L. (2009). Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea. New York, NY: Dial Books for Young Readers.
In the village of Korphe in northern Pakistan, a man stumbled, cold, hungry and sick. He had been climbing the mountains and gotten lost on the way down. The villagers gave him food, tea, and a warm place by the fire. Once he recovered, the man, who was a nurse, got to know the villagers better while he healed their sick. He met the men and women who grew and gathered their own food and made their own clothes, and the children who made their own toys and took their lessons outside, scratching on the ground with sticks.
The man, just before returning to the United States, asked the wisest man in the village, Haji Ali, how he could best help the villagers. Haji Ali's response was, "Listen to the wind." The wind carried the voices of the children as they took their lessons--outside, scratching the ground with sticks.
The man was Dr. Greg Mortensen, and this book tells of his work building the school in Korphe--of his efforts to bring lumber, cement and other supplies across a river that had no bridge, of the children who piled stones cut from the mountain itself, of the school that rose above the ground where the children had scratched with sticks.
This school is the first of 57 that Mortensen helped build in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has written a version of Three Cups of Tea for tween and teen readers as well as adults. This picture book is illustrated with beautiful collages by Roth of the people and the mountains.
Mortensen's Wikipedia link is here.
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