Sherman Alexie is Everywhere!

Sherman Alexie is everywhere lately. First he's on "The Colbert Report" and now he's commenting on the election for Salon. Why now? Not complaining, just wondering.

"New"" for Young Adults

This was a nice review of Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian in the Houston Chronicle today. I was pleased to see coverage of YA lit there. I thought it was interesting, however, that the title says "New for Young Adults." I will certainly not be looking here for "new" books if this is their idea of "new" since the book has been out for months, and he won the National Book Award back in October. Although I liked the book well enough, I have noticed that it hasn't been a huge hit with our students. Even the book club students we've persuaded to read it have not really loved it. Maybe we just have not found the right readers for it yet.

Also, a note to bloggers: Click here to learn how to complete the phrase "I hate ___" to dramatically increase traffic to your site. I am not including it here so as not to get too many irrelevant visitors. We're already getting too many from the suggestive subject line that Cody wrote about Vanessa Hudgens's sex tape and, recently, for this picture that Holly included. I guess this phrase would have been a better, easier plan than the one I had about author costumes. Who knew?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Rating: A-

A couple weeks ago the National Book Award finalists were announced - and sadly, I had read none of the books on the list. Since The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was the only book selected that I had actually heard of, I decided that would be a good place to start.

The story itself uses a basic theme that is quite common in YA lit today...the average teen chronicling life in a simple diary format. While this format is generally more popular in books with a female point-of-view, Alexie is by no means alone in having a male protagonist...an equally good example would be Exploits of a Reluctant (but Extremely Goodlooking) Hero. Although The Absolutely True Diary isn't exactly original in format, it is fairly unique in the fact that it's main character in an American Indian.

The novel chronicles a year in the life of Arnold Spirit, a young Indian who has decided to leave the poor Reservation school in favor of the wealthier "white" high school. Harassed by both the Indians he left and his new classmates, Arnold suffers a difficult year. Although he is eventually accepted for his decision, his journey is by no means easy; over the course of the year he must deal with poverty and alcoholism among his tribe, as well as the death of multiple family members (most of them directly linked to alcohol). Yet surprisingly, Alexie has somehow managed to give all of this a humorous twist. The Absolutely True Diary truly presents a story that is both humorous and heart-breaking.