Open-Minded
Fiction to support the IB Learner Profile for the Middle Years Programme
To the Boy in Berlin by Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt
This is the story of an intriguing email correspondence between Henni who lives in Melbourne, Australia and Leo Schmidt in Berlin. The emails fly backwards and forwards providing much amusement and also glimpses of the difference and similarities between their lives. They both become involved in working on Henni’s school project which involves fascinating historical documentation about early German immigration to Australia and the treatment of Germans in Australia during the 2 World wars. We also learn incidentally about some of the problems of immigration in Germany and Australia today. I especially liked the humour, especially humour concerning the difficulties of translation and also some of the extraordinarily long German words that exist. This is an excellent book for discussion on a variety of topics. (10 – 14 years)
inquirers, thinkers, communicators, principled, caring, open-minded
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
This is the remarkable story of a mountaineer who in 1993 after a disastrous attempt to climb K2 wandered exhausted and dehydrated into an impoverished village in Pakistan. There the villagers nursed Greg back to health and he was so moved by their kindness that he vowed to return and build a school for their children. That happened in 1993 and since then he has set up a fund and built over 60 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (13 years up)
Three Cups of Tea (Young Reader’s Edition)
This Young Reader’s edition has many photographs of children from the villages and also of his own family who have also become very involved with this endeavour. There are also maps and a question and answer section with Greg’s daughter Amira and a Timeline and a Glossary. (9 – 14 years)
Stones into Schools follows chronologically from where the first book ended and so it goes from 2003 to the end of 2009. It is perhaps even more fascinating because of the descriptions of the group of Pakistani men and one Afghani man who work with Greg in Pakistan and Afghanistan and how by the end of 2009 they had managed to build 131 schools. The logistics of getting schools built and then staffed in remote areas of Pakistan is difficult enough but in remote areas of Afghanistan, the challenges are mind-boggling! (13 years up)
principled, open-minded, knowledgeable, communicators
Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
Alice Pung gives a wonderfully evocative and comic account of her family’s first responses as they arrived in Footscray in Melbourne as immigrants. They were of Chinese background who had lived first in Vietnam and then in Cambodia during very difficult times. This is the story of how her family adapts to their new life in Australia and the story of how their daughter Alice/Agheare grew up in both cultures, the old and the new. It is at times a hilarious account, richly comic in its descriptions but it also gives vivid and heartbreaking descriptions of the family’s previous life in Cambodia and also of the difficulties they encounter in adapting to their new life in Australia. (12 years up)
reflective, open-minded
To the Boy in Berlin by Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt
This is the story of an intriguing email correspondence between Henni who lives in Melbourne, Australia and Leo Schmidt in Berlin. The emails fly backwards and forwards providing much amusement and also glimpses of the difference and similarities between their lives. They both become involved in working on Henni’s school project which involves fascinating historical documentation about early German immigration to Australia and the treatment of Germans in Australia during the 2 World wars. We also learn incidentally about some of the problems of immigration in Germany and Australia today. I especially liked the humour, especially humour concerning the difficulties of translation and also some of the extraordinarily long German words that exist. This is an excellent book for discussion on a variety of topics. (10 – 14 years)
inquirers, thinkers, communicators, principled, caring, open-minded
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
This is the remarkable story of a mountaineer who in 1993 after a disastrous attempt to climb K2 wandered exhausted and dehydrated into an impoverished village in Pakistan. There the villagers nursed Greg back to health and he was so moved by their kindness that he vowed to return and build a school for their children. That happened in 1993 and since then he has set up a fund and built over 60 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (13 years up)
Three Cups of Tea (Young Reader’s Edition)
This Young Reader’s edition has many photographs of children from the villages and also of his own family who have also become very involved with this endeavour. There are also maps and a question and answer section with Greg’s daughter Amira and a Timeline and a Glossary. (9 – 14 years)
Stones into Schools follows chronologically from where the first book ended and so it goes from 2003 to the end of 2009. It is perhaps even more fascinating because of the descriptions of the group of Pakistani men and one Afghani man who work with Greg in Pakistan and Afghanistan and how by the end of 2009 they had managed to build 131 schools. The logistics of getting schools built and then staffed in remote areas of Pakistan is difficult enough but in remote areas of Afghanistan, the challenges are mind-boggling! (13 years up)
principled, open-minded, knowledgeable, communicators
Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
Alice Pung gives a wonderfully evocative and comic account of her family’s first responses as they arrived in Footscray in Melbourne as immigrants. They were of Chinese background who had lived first in Vietnam and then in Cambodia during very difficult times. This is the story of how her family adapts to their new life in Australia and the story of how their daughter Alice/Agheare grew up in both cultures, the old and the new. It is at times a hilarious account, richly comic in its descriptions but it also gives vivid and heartbreaking descriptions of the family’s previous life in Cambodia and also of the difficulties they encounter in adapting to their new life in Australia. (12 years up)
reflective, open-minded
