Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2007.
Annotation: Junior's decision to leave the reservation school in pursuit of big dreams is only the beginning of a very difficult first year of high school.
Justification for nomination: Countless times while reading this book, I thought to myself "Did Sherman Alexie take Literature 332 at Metro with Adela?" His first young adult work is nearly a textbook example of what makes YA lit YA..yet it overflows with natural and seemingly effortless storytelling magic.
Multicultural? Yup.. Junior, the main character, is a Native American living the poor rez life in Washington state. Young narrator? He's 14. Are there adults helping him struggle through his first year as the only poor Indian in an all-white school? No, they're too busy drinking. Does it cross genres and subjects? Part comedy, part tragedy, a sports story, and illustrated with great cartoons, it definitely does. Fast-paced? Both my son and I read it in one day. Is it optimistic with admirable characters? Junior stutters, sports congenital deformities and thus serves as a scapegoat amongst many of his fellow reservation-dwellers. His decision to go to an all-white off-rez school exponentially intensifies his ostracized social status. Instead of acting the pain out on himself or his family, he channels all his anger and fear into drawing comics and playing basketball. Alexie doesn't shy away from grimness and shocking tragedy in this story, but he kept me laughing all the way through.
Genre: Multicultural/coming-of-age/problem/realistic.
1 comment:
Thank you for checking this book out! I loved Sherman Alexie's book "Reservation Blues" and had no idea that he had written a Young Adult Lit book.
Great review, and great job getting the message across of how multi-layered his writing can be (comic, tragic, realistic, etc.).
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