The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie

2007, Little, Brown

9780316013680

 

Fiction

 

 

Reading Level: 600L

 

Interest Age: 14+

 

Annotation: Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation. When he decides to attend high school off the reservation, he has to try to fit in among his white classmates without being seen as a traitor at home.

 

Plot Summary: Junior was born hydrocephalic and has many health problems because of it. His disabilities and unusual appearance lead to a lot of bullying in his home on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He is surrounded by poverty, violence, and alcoholism. He finally snaps on the first day of high school when, excited to start learning, he realizes his text book is at least twenty years old. Hoping to get a decent education, he decides to go to a primarily white school off the reservation. He deals with bullying there as well, for different reasons, but eventually finds some acceptance among his peers. As he attends school outside the reservation, though, he is seen as a traitor to those on the reservation. He needs to find a way to fit in with both groups while still holding on to his culture and family.

 

Critical Evaluation: This book is really well-written and very compelling for any audience. Even reading it as an adult I felt that I couldn’t put it down. I appreciated that Junior was both a very relatable character and someone coming from a point of view not often represented. On the one hand, he is a typical teenager, but on the other, he is a disabled Native American. Neither of these groups is represented often. His disability is mostly incidental to the plot, aside from being an isolating factor, but he could have been unpopular for any reason. I think it’s important to show that disabled people can be normal and can have lives where their disability is not the only thing they ever think about. His race and culture are a lot more important to his life, though. Being Native American, or Indian as he and most of the people he knows refer to themselves, is a major part of his identity. Since he lives on a reservation, he is surrounded primarily by other Indians. His Indian-ness immediately separates him from the other students at his high school.

This book is really touching, since it starts out with Junior fitting it nowhere and it ends with him finding multiple places he can fit in and many different kinds of friends.

 

Author Biographical Information: Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction, a PEN/Hemingway Citation for Best First Fiction, and the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, Sherman Alexie is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and performer. (source: fallsapart.com)

 

Ties to Curriculum Units: Native American Heritage month, multiculturalism

 

Booktalking Ideas:

• Discuss this book for Native American Heritage Month
• Compare Junior’s rejection and subsequent acceptance in the two different places

 

Challenge Issues: Sexual themes, profanity, slurs, violence, drinking and alcoholism, smoking

Challenge Defenses:

• Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
• State the library’s collection development policy
• Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
• Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
• As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form

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