He wanted to leave something behind—a memorial to his beloved sister, who suffered from a severe form of epilepsy. He had decided to carry her necklace to the summit of K2, a mountain he loved. But fate, chance, providence (take your pick) had other plans. He got lost and found himself in a remote village deep in Kashmir.
After the villagers nursed him back to health, he saw the children of that place—and others like it—sitting on the ground in a meadow for school, under a breathtaking sky at 14,000 to 16,000 feet. When the village chief explained how badly his people needed education for their children, Mortenson made a promise: he would build them a school. So began the story of Greg, an idealistic American "giant" (sometimes naïve) working in Pakistan to construct that school and dozens more. What started in the 1990s and spread by word of mouth is a genuinely gripping tale.
It unfolds with real difficulty, but the book offers a different window onto a region where we imagine only followers of Bin Laden and enemies of the West. More importantly, it shows us what it truly means to guarantee free education to every child—boys and girls alike—and why that matters for our world's future. The book also has a young reader's edition, richly illustrated, and a companion volume, Stones Into Schools, about Mortenson's work in Afghanistan.
C.T., 2010