Module 15: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Alexie, S., & Forney, E. (2007). The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. New York: Little, Brown.

Summary: Arnold, known as Junior, is an outcast on the Spokane Indian reservation, but finds solace in drawing cartoons. He comes to understand that to make more of his life beyond the reservation, that he must be active in his choices and chooses to attend a school more than 20 miles away. He goes through his first year in high school making sense of his identity and the identity of others against the backdrops of his Native American reservation home and his All-White high school.

Response: I found this piece to be an excellent representation of a coming of age tale told in a fluid and cohesive manner. The illustrations depicting glimpses into Junior’s understanding of the world around him accent the happenings in his difficult, real and uplifting life. While it centers on the cultural divisions in Junior’s life, I think that it is a piece that speaks to the outcast nature of young readers who are looking to understand themselves and their role in the larger world.

Reviews:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

SHERMAN ALEXIE, ILLUS. BY ELLEN FORNEY.

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.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. (2007). Publishers Weekly, 254(33), 70-71.

Program: During banned books week, create a discussion panel of authors, educators and librarians to discuss the importance of specific Young Adult banned novels that deal with cultural identity. Discuss issues taken with these books and why dealing with truthful and mature content is necessary for teen audiences who may be facing these issues themselves.

Module 14: Karma

Ostlere, C. (2011). Karma: A novel in verse. New York: Razorbill.

Summary: Maya and her father, a Sikh, are traveling to New Delhi to bring home the ashes of her mother Leela, a Hindu. They arrive in October of 1984 when Indira Ghandi is assassinated and chaos erupts between Sikhs and Hindus. Maya is separated from her father, and survives and navigates the country with the help of Sandeep, a boy with his own past to understand. Their stories are told through prose in the form of written journal entries.

Response: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and felt drawn in by the lyrical prose. The book is broken up into three sections, each with its own set of conflicts to resolve. While all a part of the same story, I felt that the book had brought me across a great expanse of time instead of just six weeks. Maya goes through such a journey, both in traveling across India and in adolescence into adulthood, while also providing insight to the complicated and tumultuous history of India. It is as if at the end of the book, we are in the company of another person all together when reading Maya’s thoughts. I think this is a great read and a wonderful opportunity for teen readers to know more about histories of cultures other than their own.

Reviews:

OSTLERE, Cathy. Karma. 521p. Penguin/Razorbill. Mar. 2011 Gr 8 Up—

This epic tale unfolds through the pages of alternating diaries from October 28th through December 16th, 1984. Yet countless layers peel off with the turn of each page, leading readers deeper into the rich and sometimes tortured history beneath the tale's present. Fifteen-year-old Maya, half Hindu/half Sikh, has lived her entire life in rural Canada. Her family's religion and ethnicity set them apart from their community, but also from one another. Maya's name itself signifies the tension between her parents, lovers who forsook their families for each other, but who have lived in different states of mourning and regret since. Her given name is Jiva or "life," yet her mother blasphemously calls her Maya or "illusion," an insult to her Sikh father. Thus, when life and loss lead Maya and Bapu back to India at the time of Indira Gandhi's assassination, they are plunged deep into a nation in bloody turmoil. Maya's sense of otherness escalates dramatically as she is forced to consider it on a personal and near-universal scale. The middle diary belongs to that of Sandeep, with whom Maya experiences love, tragedy, ancestry, and loyalty at an intimate (yet physically innocent) level. The novel's pace and tension will compel readers to read at a gallop, but then stop again and again to turn a finely crafted phrase, whether to appreciate the richness of the language and imagery or to reconsider the layers beneath a thought. This is a book in which readers will consider the roots and realities of destiny and chance. Karma is a spectacular, sophisticated tale that will stick with readers long after they're done considering its last lines.

Maza, J. H. (2011). Karma. School Library Journal, 57(3), 167-168.

Program: Have a creative writing workshop for teens with books like Karma and other books written in prose as the inspiration. Have available samples of writing that are factual or written as a narrative and have teens challenge themselves to write the events in a poetic fashion. Teens can choose any sort of poetic form as long as they are altering the content to express details through ornate description.