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HPU Reads: Common Book Program
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"One Honduran teenager I met in southern Mexico had been deported to Guatemala twenty-seven times. He said he wouldn't give up until he reached his mother in the United States. I began to believe that no number of border guards will deter children like Enrique, who are willing to endure so much to reach the United States. It is a powerful stream, one that can only be addressed at its source."
- Sonia Nazario in Enrique’s Journey.
Enrique's Journey
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Take part in a university community experience by reading the same book all of HPU is reading. All first-year students will receive the book at Passport Week: Fall New Student Orientation.
This year’s Common Book has been described as an “Odyssey” for the 21st Century. Enrique’s Journey, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sonia Nazario, is the unforgettable true story of a young Honduran boy’s journey to the United States in search of his mother. Along the way Enrique encounters a cast of characters who provide their own unique commentaries on immigration, not just into the United States but into the Central American countries through which Enrique must travel in his quest to be reunited with his mother. While immigration is a central theme of the book, Enrique’s encounters with bandits, gangs, drug smugglers, glue-sniffers, border agents, and a host of characters involved in one way or another in the tide of human traffic between south and north America, illuminate and provoke discussion on a host of issues from poverty, to organized violence, family responsibility, generational conflict, globalization, and the market economy.
There will be many opportunities throughout the academic year for you to discuss the book and its themes, to hear speakers, and to watch films on related topics with students, faculty, and staff.
Watch for more information about HPU Reads in the summer Passport Week mailer or contact the Center for Student Life & First-Year Programs at readysetgo@hpu.edu or 1-866-CALL-HPU, ext. 12 for details.
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Discuss the 2010-2011 Common Book!
Be part of the group! Learn about upcoming HPU Reads events. Join other students and staff to discuss the novel.
"HPU Reads" Facebook Group
Enrique's Journey Website
Author Sonia Nazarios' Blog
Sponsors: Academic Affairs and First-Year Programs
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Previous Common Books
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HPU Reads 2009-2010: Little Brother
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| The 2009-2010 HPU Reads selection is the program's first work of fiction, Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. The heroes of this adventure novel are teenagers in San Francisco who build anonymous Web sites and services after the US government censors the mainstream media and imprisons thousands in the wake of a terrorist attack. The title invokes Big Brother of George Orwell's 1984, the novel that gave us the term "Orwellian" to describe a society where surveillance of citizens is commonplace and official speech is dominated by doublethink. |
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HPU Reads 2008-2009: The Onmivore's Dilemma
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Author Michael Pollan traces four meals from their origins:
• chicken nuggets from McDonald's, eaten in the car;
• an organic TV dinner from a Whole Foods store;
• dinner from a chicken he has killed at a family-owned organic farm in Virginia;
• wild boar and mushrooms that he has hunted and gathered himself.
When you can eat everything, what should you eat? Pollan defines the omnivore's dilemma as the problem of finding the perfect meal in a fast-food world. One thing this book makes clear: if we are what we eat, it's getting so we hardly know ourselves at all.
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HPU Reads 2007-2008: The Bookseller of Kabul
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The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad, is an intimate look at the realities of daily life in today's Afghanistan and a detailed history of one family's fortunes and misfortunes during two decades of civil war. Some topics raised by this fascinating journalistic account include:
• Balance between Westernization and traditional Islam.
• Afghan traditions, family models, and the role of women.
• Changes felt by the bookseller and his family under successive regimes: the Soviets, the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, and the coalition-supported democracy.
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HPU Reads Program Outcomes
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(1) Develop a sense of community by providing a shared experience for new first-year students
and encourage retention by means of a common book and related academic experiences.
(2) Explore, think critically and creatively, and communicate ideas effectively about the many
dimensions of human problems, historical issues, and natural phenomena, as well as expose
students to foreign cultures and social conditions.
(3) Provide a place for students to engage with others, and voice and hear different perspectives, interests, and concerns from members of the university and community.
(4) Add an academic component to fall new student orientation.
Selection Committee
A group of volunteers, chaired by Dr. Allison Gough (faculty member in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences), meet during the academic year to discuss the list of nominees and to select a book. The committee uses the following criteria:
- Clear ties to HPU’s mission and to some of the Five Themes;
- A connection to global learning;
- Appropriate to a wide variety of disciplines and courses;
- Suggests a variety of co-curricular events and speakers that will enhance students' general education experience;
- ·The book will sustain discussion for a term, if not for a year.
- The book is appropriate for first-year college students.
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