Module 10: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

· Book cover image:

                                           

    

· Book Summary:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is the story of Arnold Spirit also known as Junior. He is a fourteen year old Native American living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Life on the rez is quite mind numbing and poor as Junior depicts it. The story of Junior on the reservation is cruel and real. Going hungry and missing a meal or two Junior writes is good sometimes because “being hungry makes food taste better.” Through his narrative Junior manages to make life on the rez hilarious and sad at the same time. At the time of Junior’s birth, he was born with water in the brain as he says to make it easy on the reader (he often talks to the reader) and has a large head, big feet, and lopsided eyes. One would think he is a gargoyle. Even with all its problems, life on the reservation is fine with Junior. He is even looking forward to his freshman year when he can learn Geometry because he likes corners. As he gets his geometry book, Junior notices that his mother used the same exact book when she was a freshman. This was at least 30 years before. This enrages Junior because the injustices of the treatment of Native Americans on reservations is plain to him. He then throws the textbook at the teacher, breaks the teacher’s nose, and gets expelled. During his expulsion, Mr. P his geometry teacher visits him at home and convinces Junior to strive for better than the reservation offers. Junior decides to go to the white school 20 miles away in Reardan. Well life now gets harder for Junior, but he is smarter than most in the school, makes friends with a genius, becomes a basketball star, and falls in love with a beautiful bulimic. Life is good, except that his grandmother is killed by a drunk Spokane Indian, his sister gets married and dies in her home in a fire, and his dad’s best friend Eugene is shot by a coworker. Even with all the heartbreak in his life, Junior’s spirit is not deterred. At the end of his first year at Reardan, Junior know realized that he belonged not just to his Spokane Indian tribe, but to many tribes as Junior writes in the book. He belongs to the tribe of basketball players, American immigrants, cartoonists, tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers, and many more tribes too. The story of Junior the freshman ends on a hopeful note even if he live on the rez.

· APA Reference of Book:

Alexie, S. (2007). The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. New York: Little, Brown.

· Impressions:

This was not what I expected. I do not really know what I expected. Sherman Alexie made me laugh, made me cry, made me mad, and made me sad. All sometimes on the same page.

I feel only a person who has lived that culture can write and talk so candidly about their culture. On the opening pages he discusses being hungry, being poor, losing your dreams, and shooting his dog, Oscar, because they could not afford a veterinarian. All of this and I was only on page eleven. Yet because of Alexie’s witticisms and just plain hilarious words, I was enthralled with the book. I could not put it down. At first I was wondering why it was on the censored list. I wondered if people thought maybe Alexie was exaggerating and that was why it was censored. The conditions of the Native American reservations is not an exaggeration. The conditions are sometimes deplorable and as a nation we should be ashamed that we have destined a whole culture and race of human beings to live apart from the rest of society. Why do we let it continue I wonder to myself? I have no answers but I do know that Alexie is not making these things up unfortunately. Let me get off my soapbox and continue with my impressions. I loved the honesty of Junior and the way he is portrayed with sincerity. Even though he says bad words and thinks mean things (he is fourteen after all), he is always a polite and respectful young man to everyone around him even Rowdy for the most part. Arnold goes through so much on the reservation and at Reardan and yet he always seems to bounce back. When Penelope pretends to not know him and looks at Arnold and “sniffs” him like he was a dog or smelled bad because he was different (I know she never sniffed a white person), Arnold just shrugs it off and doubts his grandmother’s wise words. Not me I was furious! I could have punched Penelope, but I just needed to read on and move on like Junior. That is what this book did to me. I was angry for Arnold with all the injustices in his life. I was sad for Arnold with all the tragedies in his life (his grandmother was killed by a drunk Indian, his sister dies while passed out in a fire, and so much more tragedy). And yet Arnold kept putting one foot in front of the other and overcame his often times unfortunate life situation of having almost nothing and yet knowing that he had so much from his life situation. That is Arnold Spirit Jr. He is a spirit of so much goodness and righteousness that one gets just drawn up in his sense of decency. The issues of the Native Americans brought up in this novel are so regrettable and lamentable, but Arnold’s spirit is just too good to bring down. I cannot say enough about all the impressions this book has left on me. The humor is hilarious, the cartoons are laugh out loud funny, and the narrative is unforgettable. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is heartbreaking, heartwarming, and uplifting all rolled into one. This book should be read by all and then maybe things would change for the better for all.

· Professional Review:

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.

R., S. (2007). The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Horn Book Magazine, 83(5), 563-564.

· Library Uses:

In the library there will be two stations where students could pick and choose which art and writing activity they want to work on.

1. Create a character biography of Junior. This will include a visual and written character map that shows and explains the components of Junior’s life, including the influences working on the inside and the influences that effect Junior on the outside.

2. On page 11, Junior writes that his parents could have been somebody different because they had dreams when they were young. “But they never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams.” Junior also draws his parents on page 12 as they would be if their dreams had come true.

Think of someone you know who might have been someone different if they had followed their dream.

It does not have to be sad. Explain how President George W. Bush wanted to be a rancher, but instead followed in his father’s footsteps and became President of the United States.

Questions to be answered along with a drawing modeled after page 12:

            1. Why did this person give up on their dream?

            2. What stopped this person from following their dream?

For either assignment, the students need to include a drawing and a short paper no longer than one page. Tomorrow the students will post their finished products around the library and the students will have gallery walk to view each other’s work.