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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2007 and has been the subject of a steady stream of school-district challenges ever since. Sherman Alexie's lightly fictionalized account of transferring from the Spokane Reservation high school to an all-white school 22 miles away is funny and angry and structurally simple in a way that makes the punches land harder.
Junior, the narrator, is 14 and gifted and scared and bored, with a cartoonist's eye that the book illustrates with actual cartoons throughout. The voice is the achievement. Alexie is writing for teenagers and respects them enough to be specific about what is bleak and what is funny and what is both at once. The chapter on alcoholism in the family is one of the cleanest pieces of YA prose I have ever read.
The book's reception has been a kind of object lesson in what banned-book lists are actually for. It is messy on purpose. It is also, plainly, life-changing for the right reader. Five stars. Buy a copy for a 14 year old you trust.
Related reads
If you liked The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Reservation Blues
by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie's first novel. Robert Johnson hands his guitar to a kid on the Spokane Reservation. Magic realism with grief in the bones.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
by Sherman Alexie
The Alexie short story collection that made his career. Some of these became Smoke Signals. All of them earn their place.
Indian Killer
by Sherman Alexie
Alexie's darkest novel. A serial killer is targeting white men in Seattle. The book is not interested in being a thriller.
The Toughest Indian in the World
by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie's 2000 story collection. Tougher, sadder, more sexually frank than Lone Ranger and Tonto. The follow-up earns itself.
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