Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian is told from the perspective a 14-year-old boy and thus it is a quick, breezy read. It is in turns very funny and very tragic. Our protagonist Arnold is an intriguing character, an Indian, born with severe health problems, who goes off the reservation to attend a white high school. Finding himself to be an outsider in both worlds, Arnold goes through many trials and travails until he finds a way to bridge that divide and become accepted in both worlds. The fantastic cartoons by Ellen Forney enhance the book and the story terrifically. Part-Time Indian is a very good book, fun, entertaining, thought-provoking, that showed to me a world of which I have very little knowledge.… (more)

What's novel about this collection of short stories is the way they explore the lived experiences of Native Americans (specifically, members of the Spokane tribe) in the modern world. Not to represent that the stories are particularly realistic - Alexie, exercising his prerogative as a writer, takes the liberty of placing his Native American characters in situations optimized to explore specific themes - but the challenges they face feel culturally and psychologically authentic.

Some of the tales deal explicitly with the struggle to integrate Native American traditions and values into the modern world, like the first story in the collection, "The Search Engine," in which a college student's pursuit of a Native American beatnik poet morphs into a modern-day vision quest. Or "Do Not Go Gentle," in which a Native American couple with a desperately ill child find comfort and healing in an extremely unusual totem. Or "Lawyer's League," in which an aspiring mixed-race lawyer weighs the extent to which he's going to need to compromise his pride in order to win the trust of an intolerant world. Or my favorite story in the collection, "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," in which a homeless Native American man goes on a quest to buy back his dignity (the stolen regalia of his grandmother, rediscovered in a pawn shop) but who is, in the end, saved by his own inherent dignity.

But others relate experiences that are more universal. For instance, in "Can I Get a Witness?" a woman who survives a terrorist explosion that forces her to confront her temptation to explode her entire life - who among us hasn't wondered what it would feel like to blow up everything we have and start over? In "The Life of Times of Estelle Walks Above", a young man struggles to accept that his mother could be both extraordinary and flawed. In "Do You Know Where I Am?" a man reflects on back on a marriage in which "contentment always ran slightly ahead of dissatisfaction". In "What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church," a former high school basketball phenom struggles to cope with the grief of his parent's death and the gradual dissolution of his own dreams. Disappointment, frustration, grief ... themes that Alexie handles with a combination of deft storytelling, psychological integrity, and copious quantities of sarcasm, which may or may not be a Native American thing ("The two funniest tribes I've ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide" - a quote from "What I Pawn"), but is definitely an Alexie thing.

While the tales range from bitter to funny, poignant to heartbreaking, they collectively deliver an experience that feels fierce but wise (words I employ reluctantly, as skewering Native American archetypes is another Alexie specialty), dark but also hopeful.… (more)

This books tells a story of a young boy with the name Thunder Boy. Thinking it would be a very cool and unique name, but he is really just named after his father. He is very self-conscious of his name and hate its. As the book goes on the father finally gives him a new name, lightening. He got given this due to all of his accomplishments.

I think this book is great for a primary classroom. This book has themes of accepting oneself for who they are and the significance of names. Your name helps show the representations of what we have done in our life.… (more)