Code of Honor

• Genre: Fiction; YA thriller
• Originally Published: 2015
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile HL660L; grades 7-9
• Structure/Length: 92 chapters; approx. 293 pages; approx. 7 hours, 8 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Persian-American Kamran Smith, a high school star quarterback, leads an all-American life until his Army Ranger brother Darius is accused of being a terrorist. Guilty by association, Kamran takes extreme measures to prove his brother’s innocence—and his own.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racial profiling; racism; gun death; the war on terror; violence; terrorism

Alan Gratz, Author

• Bio: Born 1972; holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee; currently lives in the mountains of North Carolina; member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame; awarded the National Jewish Book Award, the Young Hoosier Book Award, and a Malka Penn Award for Human Rights Honor (2017) for his novel Refugee
• Other Works: Project 1065 (2016); Refugee (2017); Allies (2019); Ground Zero (2021); Two Degrees (2022)
• Awards: YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers (2016); International Thriller Writers Best Young Adult Thriller Nominee (2016); South Carolina Junior Book Award Winner (2018-2019)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Persian-American Identity
• Conflicting Definitions of Patriotism
• Brotherhood and the “Code of Honor”

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will: