Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2007.Annotation: Junior lives on a reservation where he attends school and is subject to bullying, while Arnold is a middle class teen who attends a white school. Both are the same person, and must decide who they truly are, and where they belong.
Justification for nomination:Junior is an adolescent from a poor family, who attends school at the reservation on which he lives. After having some behavioral problems and with encouragement from a teacher, he decides to begin attending school off-reservation at a white high school. This angers his best friend, Rowdy, and causes a significant rift between them. At the white school, he is known as Arnold. He manages to establish himself in the school, and after many trials, manages to find happiness in life.
The first thing a reader will notice about this work is how real the interactions between the characters are. No punches are pulled, and the language is as rough and tumble as the teens using it. This does not in any way feel overdone, it accurately reflects the way that teens interact. The raw emotionality of adolescence is capture expertly, and definitely demonstrates the required understanding of this stage of life to be a great YA work.
Like many great YA works, this novel explores self discovery. Arnold must decide who he is, and decides to break out of the situation that life has dealt him. In the process, he forges himself his own, unique identity. This quest motif is expertly used to lead the reader on a journey that is utterly gripping.
This novel has been challenged many times. This is due mostly to the very high level of vulgarity in the language, and also likely for the sexual content. Neither of these elements are extraneous, and removing them would leave a book failing to accurately reflect the adolescent experience.
This is among the greatest of YA works. Any adolescent will connect with it immediately. It grabs the reader, and does not let go.
Genre: Censored, Challenged and Banned Books, Coming of Age/Search for Identity, Multicultural Novels
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