The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie, Ellen Forney (Illustrator)

Overview

Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606860724
Publisher:	Perfection Learning Corporation
Publication date:	07/25/2008
Pages:	230
Sales rank:	1,144,101
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

A National Book Award-winning author, poet, and filmmaker, Sherman Alexie is one of the most well-known and beloved literary writers of his generation. His works of fiction, including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Reservation Blues, and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, have received numerous awards and citations. He lives in Seattle. Like Thunder Boy Jr., Sherman was named for his father.

Editorial Reviews

With his first foray into teen literature, acclaimed author Sherman Alexie packs a punch in this absorbing novel about a Native American boy searching for a brighter future. At once humorous and stirring, Alexie's novel follows Junior, a resident of the Spokane reservation who transfers out of the reservation's school -- and into a nearby rich, all-white farm school -- in order to nurture his desire to become a cartoonist. Junior encounters resistance there, a backlash at home, and numerous family problems -- all the while relaying his thoughts and feelings via amusing descriptions and drawings. Having already garnered a National Book Award for Young Adult Literature, this moving look at race and growing up is definitely one to oick up.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is Alexie's first foray into the young adult genre, and it took him only one book to master the form. Recently nominated for a National Book Award, this is a gem of a book. I keep flipping back to re-read the best scenes and linger over Ellen Forney's cartoons…For 15 years now, Sherman Alexie has explored the struggle to survive between the grinding plates of the Indian and white worlds. He's done it through various characters and genres, but The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian may be his best work yet. Working in the voice of a 14-year-old forces Alexie to strip everything down to action and emotion, so that reading becomes more like listening to your smart, funny best friend recount his day while waiting after school for a ride home.
—The New York Times

Bruce Barcott

Screenwriter, novelist and poet, Alexie bounds into YA with what might be a Native American equivalent of Angela's Ashes,a coming-of-age story so well observed that its very rootedness in one specific culture is also what lends it universality, and so emotionally honest that the humor almost always proves painful. Presented as the diary of hydrocephalic 14-year-old cartoonist and Spokane Indian Arnold Spirit Jr., the novel revolves around Junior's desperate hope of escaping the reservation. As he says of his drawings, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He transfers to a public school 22 miles away in a rich farm town where the only other Indian is the team mascot. Although his parents support his decision, everyone else on the rez sees him as a traitor, an apple ("red on the outside and white on the inside"), while at school most teachers and students project stereotypes onto him: "I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other." Readers begin to understand Junior's determination as, over the course of the school year, alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors lead to the deaths of close relatives. Unlike protagonists in many YA novels who reclaim or retain ethnic ties in order to find their true selves, Junior must separate from his tribe in order to preserve his identity. Jazzy syntax and Forney's witty cartoons examining Indian versus White attire and behavior transmute despair into dark humor; Alexie's no-holds-barred jokes have the effect of throwing the seriousness of his themes into high relief. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Gr 7-10
Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team. Meeting his old classmates on the court, Junior grapples with questions about what constitutes one's community, identity, and tribe. The daily struggles of reservation life and the tragic deaths of the protagonist's grandmother, dog, and older sister would be all but unbearable without the humor and resilience of spirit with which Junior faces the world. The many characters, on and off the rez, with whom he has dealings are portrayed with compassion and verve, particularly the adults in his extended family. Forney's simple pencil cartoons fit perfectly within the story and reflect the burgeoning artist within Junior. Reluctant readers can even skim the pictures and construct their own story based exclusively on Forney's illustrations. The teen's determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message in a low-key manner. Alexie's tale of self-discovery is a first purchase for all libraries.
—Chris ShoemakerCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Alexie nimbly blends sharp wit with unapologetic emotion in his first foray into young-adult literature. Fourteen-year-old Junior is a cartoonist and bookworm with a violent but protective best friend Rowdy. Soon after they start freshman year, Junior boldly transfers from a school on the Spokane reservation to one in a tiny white town 22 miles away. Despite his parents' frequent lack of gas money (they're a "poor-ass family"), racism at school and many crushing deaths at home, he manages the year. Rowdy rejects him, feeling betrayed, and their competing basketball teams take on mammoth symbolic proportions. The reservation's poverty and desolate alcoholism offer early mortality and broken dreams, but Junior's knowledge that he must leave is rooted in love and respect for his family and the Spokane tribe. He also realizes how many other tribes he has, from "the tribe of boys who really miss . . . their best friends" to "the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers." Junior's keen cartoons sprinkle the pages as his fluid narration deftly mingles raw feeling with funny, sardonic insight. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews

2007 National Book Award Winner
The New York Times Book Review Notable Books of 2007 (children's books)
NYPL Books for the Teen Age 2008
2007 PW "Off the Cuff" Awards: Favorite YA Novel
2007 Horn Book Fanfare Best Books of the Year
2007 Kirkus Reviews Best YA Books
2007 School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
2007 Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner

"This is a gem of a book....may be [Sherman Alexie's] best work yet."—New York Times

* "Nimbly blends sharp with unapologetic emotion....fluid narration deftly mingles raw feelings with funny, sardonic insight."—Kirkus, starred review

* "A Native American equivalent of Angela's Ashes."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Sure to resonate and lift spirits of all ages for years to come."—USA Today

* "Realistic and fantastical and funny and tragic-all at the same time."—VOYA, starred review

* "The line between dramatic monologue, verse novel, and standup comedy gets unequivocally-and hilariously and triumphantly-bent in this novel."—Horn Book, starred review

* "Characters...are portrayed with compassion and verve....delivers a positive message in a low-key manner."—School Library Journal, starred review

From the Publisher

"This is a gem of a book....may be [Sherman Alexie's] best work yet."

New York Times

"Deftly taps into the human desire to stand out while fitting in."

BookPage

"[Alexie] has created an endearing teen protagonist in his own likeness and placed him in the here and now."

Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Exceptionally good....Arnold is a wonderful character."

Miami Herald

"Fierce observations and sharp sense of humor...hilarious language."

Newsday

"Alexie's humor and prose are easygoing and well suited to his young audience."

Booklist

"Few writers are more masterful than Sherman Alexie."

Los Angeles Times

"What emerges most strongly is Junior's uncompromising determination to press on while leaving nothing important behind."

(starred review) - BCCB

"The line between dramatic monologue, verse novel, and standup comedy gets unequivocally-and hilariously and triumphantly-bent in this novel."

(starred review) - Horn Book

"Sure to resonate and lift spirits of all ages for years to come."

USA Today

At birth, Arnold “Junior” Spirit survives brain surgery but he wonders if he will survive the Spokane Indian reservation, where he lives. The teasing about his lisp and stuttering is worse than the poverty and alcoholism that surround him. Rather than risk intellectual death, he transfers to a white school, where he and the school mascot are the only two Indians. The author’s rhythmic reading brings out the lyricism of his writing. Like his hero, Alexie has a storyteller’s voice: “that singsong reservation accent that made everything I said sound like a bad poem.” Conversations are written with humor and verve, and delivered with punch and enthusiasm. The author’s performance experience is clear in his pacing—from the slow, subdued style at a family funeral to the breakneck speed of a climactic basketball game. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

JUN/JUL 08 - AudioFile