Update, July 2018: Since the publication of this book study, multiple women have come forward accusing Sherman Alexie of sexual misconduct. This information has complicated the question of whether Alexie is an author we should still be promoting in schools. I would recommend all ELA teachers and school librarians take the time to read up on the Alexie story so you can make an informed decision. Some good resources are listed below to help.
Articles About the Allegations and the Response
Sherman Alexie’s Accusers Go on the Record
AILA Rescinds Sherman Alexie’s 2008 YA Book of the Year Award
Sherman Alexie Called Out for Sexual Misconduct for Over a Twenty-Year Period
Why Reading Sherman Alexie Was Never Enough
Discussions of Whether “Part-Time Indian” Should Still be Taught in Schools
Why I’ll Never Teach This Powerful Book Again
Other Recommended Books
(Thanks to Pernille Ripp for sharing so many of these!)
Native Characters and Culture
If I Ever Get Out of Here
The Marrow Thieves
Young Male Protagonist
Dear Martin
Ghost
Hey, Kiddo (October 2018)
House Arrest
Long Way Down
Monster
Orbiting Jupiter
Refugee
Tight (September 2018)
***original post from the Summer 2017 book study follows***
The second of five selections for our summer 2017 study of Young Adult books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is the story of Junior, a teenage boy who lives on the Spokane Indian reservation. Dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities he has there, Junior decides to start attending a neighboring school whose student body is all white.
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Here is my video reflection, followed by a few notes:
- I thought the ending of this book was done so well. It would make a good example of how to end a story with a scene that doesn’t hit the reader over the head with a point, but definitely gives us a sense of where things are headed for the characters.
- I found a strong parallel between Junior in this book and Starr in The Hate U Give, because both are trying to live in two different worlds at once and struggling with feeling like outsiders in both. This would be an interesting focus to talk with students about the different groups they belong to, how they might behave differently in each one to better fit in, and how all of that plays out in their minds.
- The illustrations in this book make it a good choice for reluctant readers because it will break up the text and offer other ways to process the story. It also gives student writers a different way of looking at their writing; those who have never had the option of adding illustration to their work could see this as a good model to follow.
- The book offers an interesting study of the complexity of friendship, through Junior’s relationship with Rowdy and Gordy. In both cases, but especially with Rowdy, the relationships swing between vulnerability and meanness. This would make for an interesting conversation with students about the nature of their friendships, what they are willing to put up with, why they stay and what might ultimately pull them apart.
- Both worlds—the reservation and the all-white school—are portrayed in both positive and negative lights. When talking to students about this, it would be interesting to see where they see their own day-to-day lives in these two worlds…what is similar? What is different?
- Junior takes his future into his own hands by deciding to attend Reardon. This would also make for an interesting discussion question: How do students feel about this decision? How do they feel about the reaction Junior got from Rowdy and the rest of his community?
- The book contains several references to masturbation, along with a lot of profanity, so teachers should keep this in mind when making it available to students. Not a good choice for elementary students, and may be questionable in many middle schools as well.
Related Resources
- Smoke Signals (film also written by Sherman Alexie)
- Hawk, by Jennifer Dance
- The Heart of a Chief, by Joseph Bruchac
- Video: Interview with Sherman Alexie (This is a really in-depth interview; evidently, the book is highly autobiographical and in the interview, Alexie talks about all the aspects of his life that are reflected in the book.)
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
One of the reasons that I decided to listen to this on audiobook is that author Sherman Alexie narrates this book. Although officially a novel, I understand that elements of this book are autobiographical. To experience Alexie’s voice both literally and figuratively underscores the power of the experiences that he has chosen to share. Seeing the reference to the book’s illustrations means that I will need to take a look at a print version of the book.
For several years I’ve had this book on my to-read list in part because I saw it as a “window” into the experience of the indigenous peoples of the United States and I also knew that there were few published books available of these native peoples. I found the book to be not only powerful in its frankness but also accessible to both young adult and adult audiences. My hope is that there are plenty of schools that include this book as a part of required summer reading for parents and older students.
I also listened to the audiobook. I read it last summer as part of my Multicultural Literature class for my MSIS program. I found myself laughing at parts and then doing a double take and thinking, that wasn’t funny. But it was. I bought it for my son and didn’t realize illustrations were included when he discussed his drawings. It’s back on my TBR list because I tend to interact more with print because I like to see the words and any other text features that can impact the meaning of the story.
This can lead to another discussion on format. I have never been a huge fan of audiobooks, but I had to get through so many in a short amount of time and I’m glad I was able to interact with Alexie’s voice, literally.
I don’t even know where to start with this one because of its depth. I would approach it as a timeline maybe. Before and after Reardon, Rowdy before and after Reardon, Junior before and after losing his sister, twice.
In a perfect world, I’d put a twist on a literature study (or circle, or book club) and I’d have some students read it, others would listen to it, and others would do both. Then I’d use Socratic seminar for discussion.
Another element to add is censorship. This book is challenged often and Alexie thrives on that. Unfortunately, I’m no longer in middle school so I can’t explore this format for a book study but I can certainly try with other titles. Hopefully I can find a teacher to collaborate with me on this.
We are having a conversation in our department right now about this book. We currently have our 10th grade students in our reading intervention classes read it and they love it. The question is whether to take the title grade-wide. With all of the research coming out now on teaching whole class novels vs. choice novels and/or smaller book groups, should we even be considering it for a grade-wide book? Maybe we list it as a choice along with 3-4 other books on similar themes?
This book was sad and funny and endearing and teenage boy all at once. The illustrations punctuate what Jr. is trying to say. There were a lot of times my emotions were confused. Do I laugh? Do I cry? The way Junior tells it…it’s priceless. Despite the challenges he faces on the rez, he doesn’t quit looking for his own way to happiness. No matter the cost. He carves his own path. It also reminded me that even though his life is not at all like my life, he has love and people who care about him. Love does not look the same in every family, but it’s there all the same. You couldn’t help but root for Junior through all of his life’s moments. Again, it was kind of like a window into a world I know very little about. I appreciate the opportunity.
While I felt like this was true to life for a young boy and what he thinks about, I would have a hard time reading it whole group. Like with the first book, it would probably be something I would recommend to kids individually with the caveat about its YA status. It would be a hard sell to parents in my district. I would, however, take excerpts from the book to show how to write amazing sentences and descriptions.
I read this book several years ago, right before I begin teaching middle school. This book had me loudly laughing and crying, plus there is so much to interpret and analyze. I would so use this and THUG to discuss the idea of double consciousness within the indigenous and black community.
I agree with others on here about reading it whole class (I haven’t read or taught any books whole class anyway due to workshop) but this would be a great book for reluctant readers and for book club.
I also listened to the audiobook version read by Sherman Alexie. I found that to be a very powerful and engaging way to experience this book. I hadn’t thought of the parallels between Junior and Starr, but they are definitely there. I think most (if not all) students can relate to the “living in two worlds” experience on some level, and that this would be a good entry point to the novels and to cultural experiences that may be very foreign to them.
Alexie’s novel felt very honest and “real” to me, and I appreciated the opportunity to enter Junior’s world. One aspect that was heart-breaking for me involved the scenes of Junior’s sister’s death and her family’s reactions and pain in response to it. Like Junior, she also left the reservation and went away from home and her community. The closeness that they obviously shared made her death and the circumstances of her death all the more tragic. The issue of alcoholism (and alcoholism on the reservation) might be another interesting topic to discuss with students.
This book has been on my “books to read” list for quite some time, but the summer book study made me finally get to it. Thank you!
I liked the book a lot. It makes me think since I teach at a school with a lot of diversity, culturally and socio-economically. What it takes for the kids sometimes to just get to school. Where they are coming from. As a teacher I can’t fix everything, but I can make sure my classroom climate is caring and safe.
I saw a lot of parallels in the two books.
– Who to trust? Teachers? Adults in general? Police? I think that I take for granted that I trust and that I am trusted.
– what are the social norms for where you are at? The feeling that Star and Junior are have to be different people in depending where they are, strange but interesting to get their point of view.
-what makes a good friend? In both books friendships are on shaky ground, some of them pull through. I think Junior didn’t have a lot of friends and would accept anything he got and he did really well at the new school even though he was a fish out of water at the new campus off the reservation.
Like many others, this book as been on my radar for years. Completely different from my initial expectations. I liked: 1) honesty; 2) true dilemma of protagonist (choice between 2 worlds); 3) complex portrayal of indigenous culture (as opposed to typical stereotypes in media); 4) universal teenage themes. I found the writing to be less complex than THUG, which isn’t necessarily a negative, but means lower level readers could enjoy this. If parents can get over the few aforementioned controversial issues, this book could be enjoyed just about any kid.
I started this a year ago when looking for a new class book but put it down when he started talking about masturbation since I didn’t think it appropriate, but I’m glad I picked it up again for this summer reading.
Like in The Hate You Give, Arnold/Junior was in two worlds with two different personas. I especially liked when he let Roger drive him home and noted that sometimes when you let people in to the other parts of your life, it turns out to be a good decision, but then he also notes later how different the win/loss of the basketball game is to the two cultures. Junior’s candidness throughout felt real and made him relatable.
I’m glad I finally finished this book and it’s definitely on my recommendation list.
This has been sitting in my “to read” list for a while and I’m so glad I finally read it. I think there are so many entry points for students to connect with the characters: friendship conflicts, life in between two worlds, competition in sport, parent conflict, etc.
I think what I liked most about this book is that Sherman Alexi did an excellent job of sharing important information on all sides of some serious topics but he did it through a way that is so relatable and understandable for youth. I definitely agree that the drawings make this book even more accessible. This is a book I would do in middle grades (Gr. 7/8) and I think the discussion around it would be rich.
Thank you for encouraging me to sit down and read this one finally!
I enjoyed this novel. Immediately, I saw the parallelism between this story and “The Hate U Give”. Unfortunately, language and some content would be tough at my conservative school. I’ve seen this book on Must Read lists but ignored it. I’m glad I did read it. I definitely can have this in my back pocket for some students.
I really loved this book. As an Australian, I found it far more easy to relate to than The Hate U Give – there are significant parallels between the indigenous American population and the indigenous Australian population. Many parts of this novel brought me to tears. As a high school English teacher, I would love to teach this novel, however I am working in a primary education setting at present so this would not be appropriate. I did discover that this is already being taught at my own kids’ high school – my 14 year old son’s girlfriend saw me reading this, and told me she had studied it earlier this year.
I apologize for my late posting. I was actually able to read the book by mid-June, or should I say I devoured it. It was such a well-written, well-formatted, and compelling read that I motored through it in a couple of days.
As stated earlier, I predominantly teach seventh grade world history (prehistory-mid-1400s), so I won’t be teaching Alexie’s work, but I also serve as a library assistant each day. I try to read a few YA titles each year in order to stay somewhat current with what the kids are reading and to be able to have informal discussions with them.
The book is an informative and insightful read that intertwines humor with contemporary Native American conditions and issues. The humor does not diminish the harsh realities of reservation life, it exposes the reader to the bleakness in such a way that it can be digested.
I appreciate the YA selections made by Jennifer. They are expanding my understanding and worldview, and even though I will not be teaching any of the books, this understanding can be shared through other means and discussions.
This book was very interesting!! I found it very well written. It completely captured Junior in who he is and it was BRUTALLY HONEST, which I loved, we don’t get a lot of brutally honest books. It was refreshing to hear his thoughts, opinions and feelings UNCENSORED. I couldn’t help but catch myself giggling aloud, bookmarking pages to share his side comments with my husband, they were too funny not to! I feel like reading this novel has made me more aware of a community we don’t hear about as much and it made me sad. It may be because they are isolated from the rest of the population where as in the book The Hate You Give, the African American community has been receiving more attention with the Black Lives Matter Movement and because they live within other communities.
Right away I noticed the same theme from The Hate You Give. I couldn’t help but feel very sad in the beginning of the book not only because of the medical difficulties Junior faced but at the hardships and lack of motivation that exist on the Native American reservations.
This book does a great job in exploring the young mind of a boy. I loved that Junior was emotional and vulnerable. Boys are always told to be strong and be “manly” but I feel this book could reach out to boys and let them know it is okay to have emotions. The friendship between Rowdy and Junior is beautifully detailed, with the right amount of childish reasoning thrown into it. I loved how it touched on the differing kinds of family relationships and the alcoholism that seems to plague the reservation. Bullying was also a topic I think was very heavily touched on in this novel and I love Junior’s attitude toward it all. Very eye opening novel. Thank you!
This was an interesting book. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. I lived in Arizona for 13 years and saw much of what Junior experienced on the reservation – the poverty, the alcoholism, the sense of community. Reading this so close to The Hate U Give may have been a problem for me. Same problems, same issues, just a different person. While from a pedagogical stand point, this could be helpful to talk about these implications for both a literature curriculum and a social issue curriculum. However, from just a reading standpoint, I found myself comparing this book to THUG and realizing I liked THUG better.
I teach college students, so most of the concerns don’t apply to me. However, if I taught high school, I might assign both books, but break it up by gender – or rather encourage the boys to read Diary and the girls to read THUG. As I was reading Diary, I thought this is the same storyline, but it is “such a boy” writing about it. Male students may not identify with Starr as much and female students may not identify with Junior. Then bring the in-class discussion together giving all students the opportunity to experience both books.
This book has been on a choice list for my accelerated reading course. I teach mostly freshmen at the college level. I read and loved this book several years ago, and I have been meaning to do a close study read of it for about a year. This pushed me to do it. I kept a detailed dialectic journal while reading, using the method I require my students to attempt: Read & annotate. Summarize the chapter. Go through annotations to complete the double entry journal part. Write a quick reflection of the chapter. It is tedious, however it does force the close reading, and you can’t help but look at each chapter to make connections and to question what Alexie was trying to convey within each chapter. There were some chapters that were so short that I only did the summary and the reflection, but that twill help me help my students with those decisions as they read. I am planning on using this book as a whole group read in a different reading class this fall, and I am excited. Thank you for your focusing assessment, it will add to the topics that I singled out! And thank you for a deadline (that I missed, but it still kicked me in the butt to do it)!
I read this quickly just after we finished The Hate U Give. I had two big summer commitments, so am catching up. I taught on an Indian reservation for two years. Sometimes, it felt like inner-city: drugs, violence, and allegiance to one part of the tribe or another. So, I too, found many parallels to The Hate U Give. I saw (and still see because I still have a small percentage of 7th grade Native Americans in my classes today) the two worlds they live in. It’s true, for them to leave the Rez and complete their degree is difficult. Often they return back to the Rez by Sophomore year of college and stay–fear of failure and a generational attitude toward “mainstream” systems. They inherantly want to rebuke the mainstream world–and I get that and respect it, too. They have to cope and learn live in both worlds–a skism in their lives. Like The Hate U Give, it could be a book I recommend to an individual student struggling to find a book they can relate to. So glad I had the opportunity to read it.
I had read this book a couple of years ago and found it very depressing. The idea that a body of people who used to have the whole of America to themselves now lives like this on a reservation, saddened me. This time I read it, however, I saw the more uplifting part of Arnold daring (despite how difficult) to reach beyond the borders of the reservation to be what he wanted to be.
Two quotes that popped out at me this time and made me really think are as follows ” Of course, ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance” (155), and “Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling, ” she (Arnold’s grandmother) used to say. “Why would I want to be in the world if I couldn’t touch the world with all of my senses intact?” (158).
So many topics we study address tolerance (or the lack thereof) and substance abuse.
This book kept popping up all over the place, so I took it as a sign that I needed to read it! I LOVED this book and the characters. I wish I could have my 7th and 8th Graders all read it, but I believe that with some of the language and talk about masturbation and porn, though believable, would get me into trouble. I might recommend this book to an advance, mature reader and just give their parents a “Heads-Up” on the content. I am now a fan of writer, Sherman Alexie.
If you liked Sherman Alexie’s book, you will also want to watch the movie “Smoke Signals, which is based upon Alexie’s books. He helped write the script and was heralded as a modern view of the Native experience.
Should we not read Edgar Allan Poe then?
Well, if we are to start cancelling authors who were philandering pigs, we aren’t going to be left with very much literature are we? H. G Wells, Hemingway, Ted Hughes – the list is never ending. I understand the desire for our children to only read great books by great authors but a great author is not always a great human being. I’ll be teaching this book AND discussing the allegations against him with my students.