The Kite Runner
Yes, there are kites. Yes, there are runners. No, despite how much we love running and flying kites, this isn't a happy story by any stretch of the imagination.
| 21st-Century Literature | 21st-Century American Literature |
| American Literature | 21st-Century American Literature |
| Author | Hosseini - Khaled Hosseini |
| Form | Novel |
| Language | English Language |
| Literature | American Literature |
| Themes | Admiration Betrayal Friendship Innocence Literature and Writing Men and Masculinity Principles Race Religion War and Warfare Warfare |
Transcript
inappropriate. Is The Kite Runner appropriate for high schoolers? The book is full of not-so-family-friendly
stuff like sexual violence, pedophilia, and your regular ol' garden variety violence.
The list goes on.
And it only takes one racially-charged rape scene to get parental censors cooking. Yikes.
But why stop there? The reasons go way beyond hand-wringing about mature topics.
The Kite Runner also raises the hackles of some native Afghans, who claim that the book
paints a too-simple picture of the people living there&
&nd the kids who played the lead roles in the movie adaptation actually had to go
into hiding to escape death threats from folks who weren't too happy with their work on the
film.
If the book has so many adults worried, are we sure that this story is a-okay for kiddos?
Well, maybe we shouldn't write it off just yet. Let put some brakes on the hate train,
shall we?
Sure, the book might ruffle some feathers, but it also brings a whole lot to the table.
Maybe it's worth getting past all the fuss to give it a read. First of all, would it
kill us to learn more about Afghanistan, the country we ⁶e occupied militarily for more
than 10 years?
Probably not.
The Kite Runner also has all kinds of things to say about how the U.S. and Afghanistan
get along& &nd what the whole refugee situation is
about& &nd hey, did you know who the Pashtun <<Pash-tuhn>>
and Hazara <<Huh-za-ruh>> were before you picked it up? Yeah, we didn ⁴ think so.
So while there might be some moments that make us a little uncomfortable&
&⁷e can still learn some valuable lessons.
Now that we mention it, maybe the discomfort is part of those lessons. So what do you think?
Is the Kite Runner way too intense for teens& &r is it too intense not to read?
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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