young adult
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is for the younger young-adult crowd. It appears to be geared for 8th grade boys. However, it always appears on the Banned Books list which got my attention. It is the story of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, who lives in poverty on a Spokane reservation and decides to help improve his future by attending a nearby white school instead of his school on the reservation.
It’s a short novel but it has a lot of heart and truth in its pages. It’s well-written by Sherman Alexie and the story and its characters are very engaging. What I can’t figure out is why it is banned so frequently. Sure, it touches on alcoholism, child abuse, masturbation, racism, murder, and lots of icky boy humor. But, I don’t think it covers these topics in any worse way than other novels. So, I just looked it up and those are mostly the reasons why it’s been banned. I truly don’t understand the close-minded people who feel that novels should be banned. Freedom of speech, people. We live in the USA! These ridiculous critics are ignoring the wonderful points of the novel—that it's important to follow your dreams, that people can pull themselves out of whatever difficulties they face with enough hard work and the right attitude, and that humans need to just learn to get along and help their fellow man. To me, those are wonderful morals to the story with which no one should find issue.
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