The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner)

Starred review from August 20, 2007
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. Ages 14-up.

Starred review from September 1, 2007
Gr 7-10-Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team. Meeting his old classmates on the court, Junior grapples with questions about what constitutes one's community, identity, and tribe. The daily struggles of reservation life and the tragic deaths of the protagonist's grandmother, dog, and older sister would be all but unbearable without the humor and resilience of spirit with which Junior faces the world. The many characters, on and off the rez, with whom he has dealings are portrayed with compassion and verve, particularly the adults in his extended family. Forney's simple pencil cartoons fit perfectly within the story and reflect the burgeoning artist within Junior. Reluctant readers can even skim the pictures and construct their own story based exclusively on Forney's illustrations. The teen's determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message in a low-key manner. Alexie's tale of self-discovery is a first purchase for all libraries."Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
Arnold Spirit, a goofy-looking dorkwith a decent jumpshot, spends his time lamenting life on the poor-ass Spokane Indian reservation, drawing cartoons (which accompany, and often provide more insight than, the narrative), and, along with hisaptly named pal Rowdy, laughing those laughs over anything and nothingthat affix best friends so intricately together.When a teacher pleads with Arnold to want more, to escape the hopelessness of the rez, Arnoldswitches to a rich white school and immediately becomes as much anoutcast in his own community as he is a curiosity in his new one. He weathers the typical teenage indignations and triumphs like a champ but soon facesfarmore tryingordeals as his home life begins to crumble and decay amidst the suffocating mire of alcoholism on the reservation. Alexies humor and proseare easygoing and well suited to his young audience, and he doesnt pull many punches as he levels his eye at stereotypes both warranted and inapt.A few of the plotlines fade to gray by the end, butthis ultimately affirms the incredible power of best friends to hurt and heal in equal measure. Younger teens looking for the strength to lift themselves out of rough situations would do well to start here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2007
The line between dramatic monologue, verse novel, and standup comedy gets unequivocally -- and hilariously and triumphantly -- bent in this novel about coming of age on the rez. Urged on by a math teacher whose nose he has just broken, Junior, fourteen, decides to make the iffy commute from his Spokane Indian reservation to attend high school in Reardan, a small town twenty miles away. He's tired of his impoverished circumstances ("Adam and Eve covered their privates with fig leaves; the first Indians covered their privates with their tiny hands"), but while he hopes his new school will offer him a better education, he knows the odds aren't exactly with him: "What was I doing at Reardan, whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making me the only other Indian in town?" But he makes friends (most notably the class dork Gordy), gets a girlfriend, and even (though short, nearsighted, and slightly disabled from birth defects) lands a spot on the varsity basketball team, which inevitably leads to a showdown with his own home team, led by his former best friend Rowdy. Junior's narration is intensely alive and rat-a-tat-tat with short paragraphs and one-liners ("If God hadn't wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn't have given us thumbs"). The dominant mode of the novel is comic, even though there's plenty of sadness, as when Junior's sister manages to shake off depression long enough to elope -- only to die, passed out from drinking, in a fire. Junior's spirit, though, is unquenchable, and his style inimitable, not least in the take-no-prisoners cartoons he draws (as expertly depicted by comics artist Forney) from his bicultural experience.

(Copyright 2007 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)