Listen to the Wind
The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea

(2009) Dial Books for Young Readers
(by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth
collages by Susan L. Roth)
 
 
“Listen to the Wind” tells Mortenson’s story in the clear, succinct voices of the children of Korphe. Leaving out background and history, the picture-book version is nevertheless true to the spirit of Mortenson’s experience and mission. The minimal text is splendidly paired with Susan L. Roth’s textural, earth-toned collages, which evoke the roughness of the terrain and the primitive quality of life there. A community spirit pervades: on nearly every spread, we see the multitude of villagers (girls in colorful headscarves; dark-haired boys) who worked with Mortenson to build their school. “Our mothers carried water to mix the cement. . . . With our small fingers we wedged tiny slivers of stones into the cement to make the walls stronger.” The raw quality of the art is counterbalanced by a “Korphe Scrapbook” of color photos documenting the people and places, helping answer a child’s question: Is this true?"
- New York Times

" The remarkable account of [Greg Mortenson's] quest...is magnificently enhanced [in Listen to the Wind] by Roth’s colorful collages. As explained in an artist’s note, she incorporated fabric, bits of paper, and other fibers into the scenery in appreciation of the Balti people’s aesthetic use of scraps. “A Korphe Scrapbook” follows the story, displaying photographs of the events, the village’s inhabitants, and the librarian who helped to fill this school and the 57 more schools that have since been built in Pakistan and Afghanistan...This truly exceptional and moving title should not be missed. - starred review, School Library Journal



" The [Listen to the Wind] narrative successfully compresses Mortenson’s story by focusing on the elements most important to children: the stranger’s appearance, the drama of the construction, the happy conclusion. Colorful fabric, cut-paper, and even computer-chip collages portray the dramatic landscape and incredible undertaking. Children will also enjoy an appended scrapbook of photographs, maps, and additional information." - starred review, Booklist

"Susan Roth’s intricately constructed collage-illustrations bring alive the cold immensity of the mountains, the warm charm of the Korphe children, and the cheerfulness of the apricot orchards. There is also a lovely synchronicity at work here that binds the story to the collage medium. As Roth explains in the book’s afterword, the women in Korphe routinely use bits of things that foreign climbers leave behind to make all sorts of things, and Roth has done the same, gathering scraps of paper and cloth to make something extraordinarily beautiful." - PaperTigers

"[Susan L. Roth's] work has a welcoming, tactile dimension—readers would want to touch the fabric headscarves, for example. A detailed scrapbook featuring photos from Three Cups of Tea and an artist's note firmly ground the book in fact." - Publishers Weekly