UNC Chapel Hill makes summer reading choice

UNC Chapel Hill's Summer Reading program has chosen for its next book a tale about a Latino soccer team from Siler City.

The book is "A Home on the Field," and the author is Paul Cuadros.  The book looks at the hurdles this team from Jordan-Matthews High School faced while winning a state soccer championship under Cuadros' coaching.

"The book offers insight into the complex issue of Latino immigrants coming to North Carolina to seek better lives and steady work but encountering significant resistance," according to a UNC press release announcing the selection.

The annual volunteer summer program asks all incoming freshmen and transfer students to read the chosen book and to come to campus prepared to discuss it in small groups. The program, like similar ones at universities across the nation, try to spur intellectual curiosity in students even before they get to college.

UNC-CH likes to bring the author of the book chosen each year to campus for an event related to the summer reading program. That shouldn't be too tough to work out; Cuadros is an investigative reporter who is now on the faculty at UNC-CH's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 

The book was selected from a pool of 239 recommendations from students, faculty, alumni and communitymembers. The other finalists: "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely; "Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran" by Azadeh Moaveni; "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Reilen; and "The Free Men" by John Ehle.