Synopsis of Text:
In The Absolutely True
Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), Sherman Alexie recounts the trials of a
Native American teenager, Arnold
“Junior” Spirit, during his first year in high school. Using humor to soften
the sometimes difficult and emotional story, Alexie creates a loveable, misfit
protagonist whom readers cannot help but root for.
Junior lives on the Spokane
Indian Reservation, where he discovers that alcohol is more important to most
residents than an education is. Junior decides to transfer from his reservation
school to Reardan High, a white school that is more than twenty miles away.
Once he arrives, Junior finds that he is the only Indian (besides the school’s
mascot) there. His best friend on the reservation, Rowdy, stays behind and vows
never to speak to Junior—the “traitor”—again. Junior also knows that everyone
else on the reservation thinks he is an “apple”: red on the outside but white
on the inside. Meanwhile, most of the students at Reardan treat Junior as an
outcast as well.
Although he is stimulated
by the intellectual challenges of Reardan’s advanced curriculum, Junior must
fight to improve his social standing both on and off the reservation. He
accomplishes this accidentally when he goes out for Reardan’s basketball team.
He surprises himself when, as a freshman, he makes the varsity team and
eventually even becomes a starting player. Junior’s biggest challenge comes
when he must play against his former basketball team from the reservation, whose
star player is none other than Junior’s ex–best friend, Rowdy.
In the course of this young
adult, coming-of-age story, Alexie highlights both the spiritual and
psychological highs and lows of living on a reservation—a place of stagnation
as well as a place of strong family roots and long-lasting love.
AWARDS:
- 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature[12]
- 2008 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Fiction and Poetry[13]
- 2009 Odyssey Award as the year's "best audiobook for children or young adults", read by Alexie (Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, LLC, 2008, ISBN 1-4361-2490-5).[14]
- 2010 California Young Reader Medal, Young Adult Book (eligible to win once during its first four years)[15].
- "Best Books of 2007", School Library Journal[16]
- 2008 "Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults", Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)[17]
- "2009 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults", YALSA[18]
"This book gave me a literary boner" -Gordy
.jpg)