A story of growth and overcoming adversity

~Charlie Whitmore, Class of 2025

“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” 

~ Oprah Winfrey

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, is a Realistic Fiction story about a poor native-American boy named junior. Junior goes to a bad school and seems destined to follow his family’s footsteps and stay in the reservation for the rest of his life. But Junior realizes that he wants his life to be better, so he decides to leave the Rez and go to a predominately white school. Junior grows in many ways during his experience making and losing friends and balancing his life in the Rez and his life at school. The overall theme of this book is Growth. Junior grows and finds out many things balancing his life at the Rez and at school.

Sherman Alexie is an author who doesn’t care what people think and writes what he thinks. The story is told from the point of view of Junior, a young Native American who has medical problems, based on Sherman Alexie. Junior is bullied for his medical problems by most of the Native Americans on the Rez and is walking down the road all of his ancestors walked down, staying on the Rez like the rest of his family. But he realizes that’s not what he wants, he decides to join a school mostly made up of white people, growing a lot in the process. The intended audience is young men. The genre is realistic fiction because it is based off of Sherman Alexie’s life but there are also a lot of fictional parts. The author used humor and profanity to get his point across. Some literary techniques Sherman Alexie used is humor, he wrote how he feels and that kept me engaged and guessing. The author’s style is he writes what he feels and doesn’t hold back. This is helpful to connect with young men because I think they respect him for not sugarcoating anything.

Flowers bloom and people grow. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, the main character, Junior, learns and grows when he leaves the reservation in search of a better education. As the book progresses Junior moves from a timid boy to a more confident and wise person. By learning from experience he realizes that if he keeps hiding he will never make it out of the Rez. Junior is broken from all the death he had endured, and in this time of pain his teacher made a comment about him missing class. After this his classmates all stood up and left the class. He realized something in this moment; “I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,” I said. “By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn’t true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not.”. [Pg 176]. Junior learns about life at Reardan; moreover, at Reardan he learns how to belong, and I matter is the words he used to express that. Junior is about to play a basketball game against his former school after they got crushed the first time. Back in Wellpinit he was scared to play but in Reardan he is a good nervous to play; “I was a nervous yucker in Reardan. Back in Wellpinit, I was a scared yucker.” [181]. Junior has learned to grow; moreover, he is not as scared or timid anymore, I am going to win, and he is just happy now, Penelope and I were just happy to be alive. Junior isn’t Scared. Junior is living. Junior grew during the course of the book, he became happy and realized that love is the most important thing to get you through life.

This book affected me by making me think about how hard some people have it and how lucky I am. The book made me feel a sense of gratitude and empathy. It challenged me to think about how many kids have to live in reservations and have trouble just getting food or a good education. It fitted in with my worldview because I understand that I am very lucky and a lot of people have a hard time getting by. It didn’t bring up memories of authors writing like this because it is a very unique style.

This book keeps you interested by using humor to convey a very important message. The quality of this book is very good. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a funny book about a young boy’s struggles with racism and bullying, and how he overcomes them