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.
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