TBR. From Gaffney article week 4 646: "Even authors who once wrote solely for adults have tried their hand at writing for teenagers; Sherman Alexie’s The Abso- lutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is one of the most popular YA novels of the decade,"

Bitter and funny and hopeful and despairing, this is mostly the story of one wrenching year in the life of Junior who leaves his reservation to attend high-school in a white town twenty-some miles away. His family, precarious at the beginning is ravaged by deaths and his best friend becomes an enemy and he is treated as a traitor. And yet survives and finds a place to grow. ( )

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 Review

Month of January 2022: Young Reader’s Classics

READING LEVEL: 4.0 AR POINTS: 6.0
(Age 12 & up, 7th grade & higher)
Originally published in 2007.

3.5 rounded up…his reading voice on the audiobook was really good. Maybe not a classic just yet, but it was written 15 years ago now and sure to be one. This story is part fiction and part autobiography, depicting a lot of Sherman Alexie’s life (Arnold Spirit Jr) growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington and being brave enough to leave it for a better life. It is a VERY “coming of age” novel full of foul language and, what many might consider, “woke” talk today. It’s raw. It’s real. You might want to consider the age of your child before allowing them to read this.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sherman Alexie was from the Spokane tribe (with a mix of a few other tribes) and was born and raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington. This novel, part fiction and part autobiography, based on his own life but also on the memory of his very best childhood friend, Randy Peone (characterized as Rowdy), who gave him the courage and strength to leave the reservation for a better life.

Alexie was born with water on the brain and had to have surgery as an infant. He did have a large head and was bullied in school, on the reservation and off the reservation, to the point he was PTSD. Randy was his one constant friend. And for a while, Alexie was an alcoholic like everyone else he knew on the reservation, including his father, but recovered.

Later, in 2015, he had a brain tumor, which was removed along with his long-term memory. Meanwhile, over the years, he had become a successful writer, winning many awards for his works in novels for young readers and poetry. Then it all came crashing down. In 2018, he was accused of sexual harassment by several women. He admitted to hurting them and apologized. But, the damage was done. The state of Arizona removed his work from their schools. The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe renamed its Sherman Alexie Scholarship to the AMF Alumni Scholarship. The American Indian Library Association took away his Best Young Adult Book Award, given to him in 2008 for this very book. I really hope he was able to get back on the right track with his life. He was married and had two sons.

The audiobook is read by Sherman Alexie, himself, and it is quite amazing! He won the American Library Association Odyssey Award for best audiobook for children or young adults. At the end of this 10th Anniversary Edition, published in 2019, Sherman shares more about himself and the character, Rowdy (Randy Peone). Randy died in a car accident in 2016, at age 49 and is buried at Hillcrest Burial Park in Kent, Washington. He was not drunk. They believe he was texting, which he often did while driving, and went into the other lane. He was the only one who died that day. Sherman spoke at his funeral and a lot of that speech is at the end of this audiobook. Very touching!

NOTE: I'm interested in reading his memoir, which should provide the truest depiction of growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation: "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (2017). ( )

A sparkling example of personal essay/narrative for my writing class. I read just a week ahead of the students so I'd be as surprised as they; tough, but worth it. Alexi's voice rings with confidence, humor, insight and sobering truth. The protagonist Native American Junior, aka Arnold Spirit, reveals his struggles with identity, belonging, hope, and family disfunction in short chapters with comic book style illustrations.

Funny, heartbreaking, intelligent. A wonderful read. ( )