ShmoopTube

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The Kite Runner, a la Shmoop. We hope you weren ⁴ expecting a heartwarming tale based

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on the title.

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The Kite Runner is heavy stuff. Like throwing your arms in the air and screaming ⁗WHY?? Heavy. Some people are less

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than thrilled about the idea that students are reading it.

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They think The Kite Runner crosses that fine line between ⁳uper depressing †and ⁷ildly

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inappropriate.   Is The Kite Runner appropriate for high schoolers? The book is full of not-so-family-friendly

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stuff like sexual violence, pedophilia, and your regular ol' garden variety violence.

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The list goes on.

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And it only takes one racially-charged rape scene to get parental censors cooking. Yikes.

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But why stop there? The reasons go way beyond hand-wringing about mature topics.

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The Kite Runner also raises the hackles of some native Afghans, who claim that the book

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paints a too-simple picture of the people living there&

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&⁡nd the kids who played the lead roles in the movie adaptation actually had to go

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into hiding to escape death threats from folks who weren't too happy with their work on the

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film.

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If the book has so many adults worried, are we sure that this story is a-okay for kiddos?

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Well, maybe we shouldn't write it off just yet. Let ⁳ put some brakes on the hate train,

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shall we?

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Sure, the book might ruffle some feathers, but it also brings a whole lot to the table.

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Maybe it's worth getting past all the fuss to give it a read. First of all, would it

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kill us to learn more about Afghanistan, the country we ⁶e occupied militarily for more

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than 10 years?

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Probably not.

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The Kite Runner also has all kinds of things to say about how the U.S. and Afghanistan

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get along&  &⁡nd what the whole refugee situation is

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about&  &⁡nd hey, did you know who the Pashtun <<Pash-tuhn>>

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and Hazara <<Huh-za-ruh>> were before you picked it up? Yeah, we didn ⁴ think so.

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So while there might be some moments that make us a little uncomfortable&

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&⁷e can still learn some valuable lessons.

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Now that we mention it, maybe the discomfort is part of those lessons. So what do you think?

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Is the Kite Runner way too intense for teens&  &r is it too intense not to read?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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