Written by Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner shows the growth of a young boy as his life drastically changes while his homeland of Afghanistan completely falls apart. Amir, the protagonist, is brought up by his dad and servants in a mansion near Kabul. In Afghanistan, Amir is taught how to respect his family, Sunni religion, and Afghanistan culture. His society set high standards for how certain people are supposed to be respected, and how much respect they need to pay others. Amir and his father come to America for a temporary home while they wait for Afghanistan to become a peaceful country again. They face a number of financial, social, religious, and other types of challenges, making their transition to the America even more difficult. Through his experiences, Amir redefines his values and learns how to make his own judgments without being influenced.

Amir grows up spending most of his time with his family. If he isn’t with someone blood related to him, he is with his best friend Hassan. Hassan and Hassan's father, Ali, live with Amir's family and works for them as servants. Amir always becomes frustrated when his father pays more attention to another child then himself, especially if it is Hassan. One day, Amir's father invites Hassan to join himself and Amir to spend an afternoon together at the lake. Hassan challenges Amir to a rock skipping competition and beats him by numerous skips. Amir feels furious when his father pats Hassan on the back and also puts his arm around Hassan's shoulder; Amir's father didn't even give his own son any recognition for attempting to win the contest. Later on, Amir realizes that it was wrong of him to believe that his father shouldn't care about Hassan just because he wasn't his son. Not long after, Amir recognizes how close his family is with Hassan's family, and how much they care about one another; Amir begins to consider them part of his family. Amir now understands how biologically related somebody is to him shouldn’t determine the amount of love and support he is allowed to give them.

As a young boy, Amir always has friends over at his house that he enjoyed playing games with. He never feels guilty about ignoring Hassan while he plays with his friends because Hassan is his servant, a Hazara, and a Shia Muslim. Since Amir was a Sunni Muslim, he is more superior than Hassan according to the rules of his society. Once when Hassan walks alone on the street, a gang of bullies come to him and start to harass him; they ask him questions about how he could believe that Amir was truly his friend when Amir always excludes him from their games when they came over to Amir's home. Hassan responds by saying that it doesn't matter what they think, he knows that Amir is really his friend and honestly cares about him. The bullies brutally beat Hassan until they were satisfied by how much he is suffering. Amir witnesses the entire experience, but hides so that nobody could see him. After that day, Amir learns to value how loyal Hassan is to him and to be proud of their friendship. Amir is no longer influenced by his society's view about different groups; he won't judge a person by which religion they practice or what ethnic group they're from.

Even though he initially judged people by the standards in society, Amir learns how to treat everybody who cares about him with respect and dignity. He transforms from a young ignorant boy, into a man who knows that nobody's personality can be measured by their religious or ethnic background. Amir has truly become a wise and open-minded person who can break down barriers that separate him from becoming friends with good people.