Check out the May 2009 issue of Good Housekeeping. In “Teach a Girl, Change the World,” Judith Stone writes about Three Cups of Tea, the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea is the story of how Mortenson has built schools for girls in Pakistan. Three Cups of Tea has sold more than two million copies and has been on the Publishers Weekly trade paperback bestseller list for more than 84 weeks.

On January 23, 2009, Greg Mortenson and his 12-year old daughter, Amira, spoke in my town—Montville, New Jersey—at the Robert R. Lazar Middle School. In “Mortenson Shares His Message” in Neighbor News, Lisa Kintish reports that Mortenson asked the middle school kids how many of them had talked to their grandparents about The Depression, World War II, Vietnam, and the Civil Rights Movement. It’s usually only 10%. Our kids fared better (15%). But in Pakistan and Afghanistan, 90% of the kids raise their hands. The elders go to the schools and share their stories. “It’s a tragedy in our great country that we lost that,” says Mortenson.

Everyone’s stories are a treasure. Have you shared one today?

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/real/education-for-girls?click=main_sr

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6656909.html

http://www.theneighbornews.com/NC/0/2271.html

http://www.montville.net/lazar/mediacenter/

Look for Mortenson’s follow-up book, Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in December 2009.

Photo credit: www.robturner.co.uk