As the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan seems headed from bad to worse, Greg Mortenson, co-author of the blockbuster Three Cups of Tea (140-plus weeks and counting on the New York Times bestseller list), and his Central Asia Institute are building more schools in that volatile region than ever before. The ongoing effort is the subject of Mortenson’s new book, Stones into Schools, a sequel that is at least as good as its inspiring predecessor.

“This year has been by far our most successful year,” Mortenson says during a call to his home in Bozeman, Montana. On this particular afternoon Mortenson is at home caring for his 13-year-old daughter, who had her tonsils removed earlier that morning. “She loves singing, so that’s the main thing she’s worried about—her voice and vocal chords,” he says.

Mortenson, it quickly becomes obvious, is not a man for sound bites. He is well-read (“I read about two books a week. I read all nonfiction, mostly related to my work, much to my wife’s dismay. Right now I’m reading The Graveyard of Empires by Seth Jones.”). He is knowledgeable enough about working successfully in Afghanistan and Pakistan that the U.S. government, and especially the U.S. military, now regularly seeks his advice (“I’m pretty much a pacifist, so it’s a little hard for me to tell our politicians and the public that the military really gets it. But from my honest perspective on the ground, I’d say a lot of our commanders and NCOs do get it.”). And he is thoughtful, rather than ideological (“We often have to work with some pretty shady characters, including the Taliban, opium smugglers and corrupt government officials. [The success of the work] is about empowering elders, listening more and building relationships. It’s about getting local buy-in. . . . I always say politics won’t bring peace, but people will.”). In conversation, one thought leads him to another, which leads to an exploratory aside, which leads to a question, which leads to a humble demurral, which leads to a revision of the original thought. All of this is part of Mortenson’s genuine personal appeal.

Circling back to the original question about the success of his school-building effort, Mortenson says, “It took us eight years to set up the first 30 schools. This year we set up 31 schools. Over the last two years we’ve been moving significantly into areas where the Taliban prevail and we’re able to do that entirely because of our relationships with the local elders.” None of the schools Mortenson has helped build has been forced to close, despite the growing insurgency, because, he says, “the community is so fiercely devoted to something they’ve put their sweat, tears and blood into.”

"I always say politics won't bring peace, but people will."

Stones into Schools continues the story of these devoted relationships that Mortenson began to tell in Three Cups of Tea. Like its predecessor, the new book offers a dramatic narrative of derring-do, a geographical and cultural education about a poorly understood region of the world that has become increasingly important to U.S. interests, and a moral education about the value of humility in international relationships.

But Stones into Schools is also different from the previous book. For one thing, it makes a compelling case for what Mortenson calls the Girl Effect—the importance of educating girls and young women in the developing world. Educating girls, Mortenson says, “reduces infant mortality, reduces the population explosion and improves the quality of health and of life itself.” In addition, Mortenson points out, young men wishing to go on jihad “first must get permission from their mothers. . . . The Taliban very deliberately target impoverished, illiterate communities because many educated women refuse, even at the risk of their lives, to allow their sons to join the Taliban. There is a profound influence from the mother, especially if she is educated.” So communities where Mortenson’s organization builds schools must agree to send their girls to school.

Another difference between the two books is in the telling of the tale. Three Cups of Tea is written in third person, and Mortenson is the story’s main protagonist. Urged by Viking, his publisher, Mortenson tells the second installment of his story in the first person. “I’m a pretty shy guy,” Mortenson says. “I was really embarrassed to write it in first person. My wife told the publishers, ‘If Greg writes a book in first person, it will be a pamphlet.’ ” But with help from editor Paul Slovak (“I can’t praise him enough,” Mortenson says) and assists from writers Mike Bryan and Kevin Fedarko, he has produced a compelling first-person account that, ironically, is less about Mortenson than it is about the accomplishments of the “Dirty Dozen,” the ragtag local staff that has assembled around Mortenson’s school-building effort over the years and “is now achieving much more than anything I could ever do. They’re willing to risk their lives. They’ve gone into areas where it would be very, very risky for me to go. I’ve been enjoying taking a back seat and watching this happen.”

Finally, Stones into Schools gives a glimpse of Mortenson’s changing role. Because of the phenomenal grassroots response to Three Cups of Tea, he now spends far less time in distant reaches of Pakistan and Afghanistan and more time on speaking tours or in his office in Bozeman, building the organization to support the burgeoning efforts of the Dirty Dozen. To avoid the cynicism and burnout he has seen in other career humanitarians, he has made a deliberate choice to take better care of himself “emotionally, mentally and physically.” His wife, Dr. Tara Bishop, tries to limit him “to 120 days away a year, although last year it was more like 160 days.” The couple has a date every Tuesday night, “no matter what,” and he devotes every Saturday to his son and daughter. “I’m just a very stubborn Midwesterner,” Mortenson says. “I work very hard at things. I’m not a rocket scientist, and I’ve tried to stress how many failures I’ve had. It is sometimes painful, but you have to let people do things themselves. So now I just call myself a cheerleader, or I say I am the Chief Tea Drinker.”

Well, then, long may Greg Mortenson drink tea—and continue to write about it.

Alden Mudge writes from Berkeley, California.

Richard Whitmire is a longtime education reporter and editorial writer who has chronicled a critical shift in the national education debate: While it was once presumed that girls were falling behind in school, now it appears that boys are at greater risk. Exploring the issue has become his passion, both in his blog and in his new book, Why Boys Fail. BookPage asked Whitmire to provide a tutorial on a subject of interest to parents, teachers and employers.

You didn’t always believe it was boys who were in trouble in school.
I was an education reporter in the Washington bureau of Gannett News Service when the American Association of University Women released its research on girls getting shortchanged in school. As the father of two daughters, I quickly wrote that up—uncritically—as fact.

What made you change your mind?
In the years that followed, I realized I had made a mistake. That research was flawed. It first became obvious anecdotally, by watching my nieces and nephews and the other students in local schools. More importantly, it became obvious in the national data. The gender gaps we see in college are the most obvious evidence—nearly 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 62 percent of associate’s degrees go to women. Unlike two decades ago, when uneducated men could find good-paying work, men today need those degrees as much as women.

How did the researchers get it wrong?
It’s not so much a matter of getting it wrong as never trying to get it right. By choosing not to investigate the problem, the U.S. Department of Education ducks the politically sensitive issue. In Why Boys Fail, I lay out the history behind that sensitivity, which starts with conservatives blaming feminists (unfairly, from my perspective) for the problems boys were experiencing in school. The national feminist groups went into a defensive mode and countered that boys were not experiencing problems. When men rule the White House and Wall Street, that argument carries a lot of credibility, at least on the surface. But when you bore down to the community level, to the boys and girls in your local schools and men and women in the local economy, the reality is very different. Men are in trouble, and much of that trouble can be traced back to unequal educations.

Does the failure of boys in school cut across all races and income levels?
I would say yes, with the possible exception of those coming from the most elite families. (And even in the most expensive prep schools I hear college placement advisers remark that their girls perform better than the boys.) Among Hispanic and African-American boys, the gaps are huge: Twice as many black women as men earn bachelor’s degrees. Less obvious, however, are the gaps we’re seeing among the sons and daughters of blue-collar families, where the daughters are far more likely to enroll and graduate from college. This is a key question, and it gets at what may be the most important insight from the book: There’s a common thread (literacy skills) connecting the problems minority boys are having with what we’re seeing in blue-collar/white and middle-class suburban schools.

Could it simply be that boys traditionally have never liked school as much as girls?
Yes, but in years past the boys were given plenty of time to catch up. Reading experts tell me that by fourth grade boys should pull even with girls in literacy skills, but that’s not happening. There’s a second issue here. In years past it was OK for many boys to dislike school. Blue-collar jobs were plentiful. Today, however, college has become the new high school. Want to be a cop? Better have at least an associate’s degree.

What are the risks of having too few male college graduates?
There are some national economic considerations. Women are less likely than men to major in the hard sciences or launch risky business ventures. But the real implications are interpersonal—the so-called “marriageable mate” issue that has inflicted so much pain among African Americans. Women hesitate to “marry down” to someone with a lesser educational background. Hence, a lack of marriageable mates.

What solutions do you recommend?
The obvious solution is to start at the beginning with a federal investigation. Once the causes are pinpointed, the Department of Education can launch research into remedies that can be pioneered by interested school districts. Just as urgent is federally sponsored research into single-sex education. Do boys and girls really have gender-specific learning styles that teachers must master? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s find out.