One Book One Community

Eagles soar with Fall 2010 One Book selection Flight

UNT’s One Book, One Community project focuses each year on a theme of general interest to students, faculty, staff, administration, and the community at large. Through discussions of that theme and its incorporation into a variety of activities, we seek to strengthen the ties that have brought us together at UNT. 

This year the committee chose the book Flight by Sherman Alexie
which deals with the themes of overcoming adversity, coming of age, understanding our common humanity and often our propensity to hate. We will use this book around which to organize discussion sessions with freshmen in small groups to take place within the first few weeks of school. All entering freshmen and discussions leaders will receive a free copy of the book. All freshmen will be expected to read the book (which they will receive at orientation) and to participate in the discussion.

About Flight:
Sherman Alexie is a gifted and accomplished nationally known storyteller. His talent, coupled with the exhilaration of time travel (and who doesn’t love time travel?!), produce a compelling read. His novel, Flight,is a fast and timely story of a troubled foster teenager. Angst-ridden and filled with anger, the journey for this young hero begins as he's about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time to experience moments of violence in American history. During these frantic trips through time, his refrain grows: "Who's to judge?" and "I don't understand humans." When finally, blessedly, the young warrior comes to rest again in his own contemporary body, he is mightily transformed by all he's seen. He better understands why humans hate. Flight evokes laughter and heartbreak; it is wholly contemporary yet steeped in American history. A book you’ll thoroughly enjoy after getting past your first reaction of “this book is about whaaaat?!”

If you are a student with a disability (blindness, dyslexia, or other print disability) you can request an alternate format of Flight by joining Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic at http://www.rfbd.org/.

For questions or more information, email Dale Tampke at Dale.Tampke@unt.edu; or Ernest Lerma at Ernest.Lerma@unt.edu.