The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Blog #9

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie

I was totally not surprised that I enjoyed this novel! I had heard such good things about the novel and that I would literally laugh out loud while reading it! All of the above were accurate! The novel was an easy read and I really enjoyed Alexie’s humor within the seriousness of the situations. When I started reading it, I thought it was just going to be a story of a teenage boy who had to go through hardships in his life and that the novel was going to be Junior telling me different bad things that happened to him. Much to my surprise, the novel was all about overcoming the hardships you face and doing something with your life.

Junior, the narrator and main character of the novel, was born with “water on the brain.” He suffered seizures and was made fun of almost all of the time because of his large head and stutter and lisp. He has one friend, his best friend, Rowdy. Rowdy was a bully to most of the other kids, but he protected Junior. Junior and Rowdy and their families live on the Native American reservation. Junior and Rowdy both start ninth grade at the same school and Junior quickly gets suspended from school for throwing a book at Mr. P’s face and breaking his nose. While Junior is sitting at home one of the days that he is suspended, Mr. P shows up at his house. Junior is extremely confused as to why he is there. Junior and Mr. P begin talking and they are talking about Junior’s sister and how she wanted to be a writer, but had given up on her dream. Junior then says, “There is always time to change your life” (Alexie, 2007 p. 40). This is one of my most favorite quotes in this novel. When Junior says this, it foreshadows his own life. Mr. P then tells Junior that he needs to leave the reservation to start a new life for himself. After his conversation with Mr. P, Junior decides that he does want to get out and start over. He decides to attend Reardan, which is a school that is full of rich white people who are extremely smart and athletic. Junior is afraid to go to Reardan, but he knows that if he doesn’t go, he will never get out!

When Junior decides to go to Reardan, that is probably one of my favorite parts in the novel. This shows people that no matter what you are born into, you can get out and make something out of yourself. Especially the fact that Junior eventually succeeds and makes the varsity basketball team and has a starting position. Junior knew that he had to leave the reservation if he was going to make something out of himself and do something with his life. Always have hope and do what you have to do to get there!

The Sports Illustrated article was interesting. I had never thought about the fact that teams’ mascots could be offending people. It is hard for me to think that team mascots would be changed after such a long time though. It makes me think that the mascots aren’t offending enough people, because if they were, the mascots would have been changed by now. As for the article on Native American Literature, I really liked the end of the article when strategies for teaching Native American Literature were discussed. “Teachers dedicated to providing children with accurate information about Native Americans will take advantage of these opportunities to correct prior learning” (Harris & Reese, 1997). If we teach accurate information the first go round, other educators will not have to go back and re-teach an accurate interpretation of Native Americans.

Citations:

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

Harris, V. J., & Reese, D. (1997). Native Americans in Children's Literature. Using multiethnic literature in the K-8 classroom (pp. 155-185). Norwood, Mass.: Christopher-Gordon.

Price, S. (2002, March 4). The Indian Wars. Sports Illustrated, 96, 66-72.