One book...one community...a multiplicity of ideas.

That's the goal of Chapman's annual Summer Reading program, which forms the foundation for our Academic Orientation on August 21, 2008. All students beginning at Chapman this year, along with all Freshman Foundation Course (FFC) instructors and all Orientation Assistants, will be reading Sherman Alexie's Flight.

Get your copy at any major bookstore, the Chapman University Bookstore, or online.

The links below connect you to more information on Sherman Alexie and issues raised in Flight, along with some historical and social background on Native Americans and assimilation:

• Sherman Alexie and his work: Alexie's home page
• YouTube interview with Sherman Alexie: He talks about writing, Indians, 9/11 (and tells funny stories)
• Indian Boarding Schools in the U.S.: Learn about the federal effort to assimilate Indians into white society
• Canada's Amends for Indian Boarding Schools: A June 2008 apology from the Canadian government for the forced assimilation of Native Americans
• Foster Care in the U.S.: Get a sense of how realistic a character Zits, Flight's narrator, is
• American Indian Children in Foster Care: Add the issues of identity and heritage to the other problems Zits faces