The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie the story of Junior's life growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation. This YA fiction story is autobiographical of Alexie's life.
We meet Junior as he known to his family and friends but in his new school he is known as Arnold Spirit. This is just one of the challenges our young Indian friend has to face as he tries to negotiate the world of differences between living on the rez and going to school in the neighboring white farm community.
Junior is a 14 year old boy who lives with his mom, dad and sister. His parents grew up on the reservation and never left. This is a cold hard look at the hard life of the reservation. So many adults are alcoholics. They are uneducated and poor with no prospects of changing that trajectory. A teacher tells Arnold that he is very smart and he has a chance to escape the same fate. So with his parents support and help Arnold travels 20 miles a day to the neighboring town to the white high school.
It is a hard decision, his friends and fellow Indians are angry that he is trying to leave the reservation. The white families in the town are prejudice against him for coming from the rez.
But slowly Arnold learns to be a part time Indian and to make a few friends in the white world. This is his story. It contains discussions of a 14 year old boy's thoughts about sex and the fights Junior gets into as he tries to balance between two worlds. It is a true life lesson for many of us about how people are all the same and we should look beneath the skin and clothes to see the person in front of us.
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