The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

For Wellpinit and Reardan, my hometowns

Borrowed from CLP on 2/21/23 for reading with Ken Boas class on banning books on March 16, 2023 Ewww Sad - but the writing is so light, so tender, the sadness is ok somehow. Racism The white world. The world where HOPE is allowed to live. So he’s an immigrant in his own country, because he has to leave his birthplace in search of a dream. p. 216 Deaths from alcohol. Magical realism: the death of Stupid Horse in Turtle Lake, and the monster tree whose branches do not break when climbed, even those at the top. pp. Banned for masturbation and other teenage vices. He loves geometry - and masturbation, p. 25

Sherman Alexie’s

mirrors in which readers can see themselves on the pages of literature and thereby know their existence in the world is valid and true,

windows into worlds they might never have imagined.

Or disabled people, or bullied people, or poor people, or funny looking people, or bookish people,

It is hard to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Full stop

Haha

Alexie’s brilliance lies in his ability to speak truth to power with humor, grace, and love.

—Jacqueline Woodson

the Indian Health Service funded major dental work only once a year, so I had to have all ten extra teeth pulled in one day.

Ewww.

And what’s more, our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain.

Racism

whenever I had a seizure, I was damaging my damage.

Ewww

Haha sad

fourteen years old, like me,

Do you know what happens to retards on the rez?

I mostly hang out alone in my bedroom and read books and draw cartoons.

I feel important with a pen in my hand. I feel like I might grow up to be somebody important. An artist. Maybe a famous artist. Maybe a rich artist.

I wish I were magical, but I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservation.

Oscar

And sure, Oscar was only an adopted stray mutt, but he was the only living thing that I could depend on.

So sad

Honestly, Oscar was a better person than any human I had ever known.

Haha racism

Jeez, how stupid was I? What kind of job can a reservation Indian boy get?

Haha

There was nothing I could do to save Oscar. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

So sad

“Junior,”

wanted to blame them for my sick dog and for all the other sickness in the world.

the very first poor people.

Haha

Given the chance, my mother would have gone to college. She still reads books like crazy.

Sad

we reservation Indians don’t get to realize our dreams.

You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly.

And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor.

So sad

Rowdy

“It’s not like anybody’s going to notice if you go away,”

Haha - sad

Rowdy is the toughest kid on the rez.

I turn into a ice-covered ice cube with an icy filling.

Haha

Those rhythmless, talentless, tuneless Indians are most likely going to get drunk and beat the shit out of any available losers.

I was born all broken and twisted, and he was born mad.

Haha

It’s a big deal when Rowdy is polite.

Haha

What kind of men beat up a fourteen-year-old boy? Major-league assholes.

Rowdy snuck in, shaved off their eyebrows, and cut off their braids. That’s about the worst thing you can do to an Indian guy.

Ewww

revenge also feels pretty good.

He’s a big, goofy dreamer, too, just like me.

I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than his real life.

Haha sad

Let’s do the math.

I was most especially excited about my first geometry class. Yep, I have to admit that isosceles triangles make me feel hormonal.

A reason the book has been banbned