By Sherman Alexie
230 pages
For the category of National Book Award Winner, I returned to the English book room for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. We haven’t had this book long but I can see the appeal to the sophomore-aged student.
This book is told by Junior, aka Arnold Spirit Jr., a 14-year-old Indian living on a reservation (rez) in Washington. On his first day of high school, he throws a book at his teacher, breaking the teacher’s nose. During his suspension from school, his teacher comes to visit him. Junior is surprised when his teacher isn’t angry, and, in fact, offers Junior some advice: get out of the reservation. Junior is surprised when his teacher tells him how intelligent his older sister was and sees the same potential in Junior. The key to reaching this potential is leaving the rez. Junior takes this advice to heart and tells his parents that he wishes to go to an all white school 22 miles away.
This is a big deal because the tribe now views Junior as a traitor. They cannot believe he would choose to abandon his people. Even Junior’s best friend is so mad that he stops talking to him. Add this to the fact that he is the only Indian at his new school, and it makes for a fairly difficult transition for him. Ha, as if being a freshman wasn’t difficult enough!
School is not the only thing affecting Junior’s life. He also struggles with his life on the rez surrounded by poverty and alcoholism. Through the course of his freshman year, Junior deals with the deaths of three people close to his heart and we learn he has been to 42 funerals in his short life. His best friend is beaten by his drunken father on a daily basis. Sometimes Junior can’t make it to school because they don’t have enough money to put gas in the car and 22 miles is too far to walk (although he does walk at least 3 times). Oh, and did I mention that he was born with a brain disorder? Yeah, add that on top of it all.
Through all of these hardships, Junior takes comfort in drawing comics. These pictures (by Ellen Forney) are sprinkled throughout the book and really do add to the story. So, with the help of his great sense of humor and his art, Junior takes us through the journey of his first year of high school. Alexie is successful in creating a real voice for this character (maybe because the character was inspired by some of his real life experiences?).
My favorite character is actually the grandmother, Grandma Spirit. Junior describes her best quality as tolerance. He knows that sounds weird, but explains how his grandma never looked at people differently because of their skin or treated people differently because of their income. She believed in respecting everyone. I think that this is a very important lesson for everyone to learn – hopefully at a young age.
So yes, I would recommend this book. I think it would be better for someone young, teenager probably, but it still deals with deeper issues that we can all learn from.
4 Stars