The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian

Author: Sherman Alexie
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Reprint Edition April 1, 2009
Lexile Measure: 600L
Classification: Fiction

Summary:  
This novel, which won a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, is no stranger to controversy.  The American Library Association lists it as one of the most frequently challenged books in 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.  Despite the controversy that follows it, educators praise the book for its message and its engaging tone and personable narrator in the character of Arnold (“Junior”), a teenager growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation.

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Language:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is told from Arnold’s point of view.  He uses profanity in his narration, and he quotes others who use profanity.  Between the two, they use it a lot.  Arnold never uses it towards others.

Profanity includes:
b*stard (p. 3)
r*tard (p. 4)
*ss (p. 7, 44, 48, 49, 72, 115, 116, 124, 130, 131, 157)
s*cks (p. 13, 122, 143)
cr*p (p. 19, 28, 143, 159)
b*stards (p. 21, 22)
*sshole (p. 21, 176)
sh*t (p. 40, 56, 65, 75)
Jesus (p. 75)
oh my God (p. 80, 93, 122, 129)
d*ck (p. 93)
the “N” word (p. 64)
p*ss (p. 109)
f*ck (p. 64)
p*ssy (p. 51)
f*ck (p. 52)
d*mn (p. 129)

Drug and Alcohol Use:
Alcohol use and abuse is one of the major themes of this book.

• References to adults and teens drinking, becoming drunk, and suffering from alcoholism are, frankly, too numerous to mention.
  
• It is important to note that drinking is not glamorized.  To the contrary, Junior recognizes that alcohol abuse is destructive and hard to escape.
  
• The book references pot smoking on p. 27.
  

Violence and Crime:

• Several teens in the book get into fights, and Junior is a frequent target of verbal and physical bullying due to his handicap and, later, his decision to leave the reservation to attend high school (see, p. 21).
  
• Rowdy vandalizes a van on p. 20.
  
• Several characters, including Junior’s grandmother die at the hands of a drunk driver (see, pp. 157-158).
  
• A friend in a drunken fight murders Eugene, one of Junior’s father’s friends. Eugene helped Junior throughout the book and supported his decision to leave the reservation for school, over the last drink of alcohol.  (See, pp. 169-173).
  
• Arnold’s beloved older sister is killed in a house fire because she is too drunk to escape.
  
• Junior’s friend, Rowdy, suffers physical abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father on pp. 16-17.  
  
• Despite his peaceful nature, Arnold gets in several fights, both as victim and instigator, including one fight in which he punches a white boy at his new school for telling a racist joke (pp. 64-65).
  

Sexual Content:
Arnold is a teenage boy, and his diary has lots of sexual references but little sex.

• Arnold loves math, and he says that an isosceles triangle makes him feel hormonal on p. 25.  He notes that he likes women and their curvier parts and spends hours in the bathroom with a magazine that has one thousand pictures of naked movie stars.
  
• He says, “Naked woman + right hand = happy happy joy joy” (p. 26).  He then admits that he masturbates and says that if there were professionals, he would be one.  Arnold says that he is glad God gave him thumbs to masturbate with and that if God didn’t want people to masturbate, he wouldn’t have given them thumbs (p. 26).
  
• Arnold got an erection when an attractive teacher hugged him.
  
• Arnold drew a cartoon, on p. 96, referencing the “boner” a friend got when thinking about books (see also, pp. 97-98, in which they talk about being “rock hard” at the thought of a book).
  
• Arnold’s girlfriend’s racist father told him to keep his hands out of his daughter’s panties and to keep his “trouser snake” in his pants.  He then told Arnold that if Arnold got her pregnant, and, “make charcoal babies,” he would disown her. See, pp. 109-110.
  
• Arnold and his girlfriend hold hands and kiss, but that is it. Later, Arnold describes watching her play volleyball and says that he could “see the outlines of her white bra and white panties.”  He said that she was white like the most perfect vanilla dessert cake and that he wanted to be her chocolate topping (p. 114).  Once, when she kissed him after learning that he was poor, Arnold said that he felt bad because she had been concerned about him and he had only been thinking about her breasts (p. 127).
  
• Characters refer to homosexuals as “gay” and “faggot.”
  
• Although I am not sure that this fits in the “sexual content” area, on p. 105, Arnold talks about sitting in the bathroom at school going “number two.”
  

Other:

• White man’s racist attitudes and actions towards Indians is a major theme of this book.  Junior criticizes white Christians who work on the reservation.  Angry at God after the deaths of his grandmother and Eugene, Arnold draws cartoons making fun of Jesus and saying that he wants to kill God (pp. 169-173).
  
• Later, though, he prays, asking God to protect his father.  
  
• Also, his grandmother asked the family to forgive the drunk driver who hit her (pp.157-158)
  
• Arnold says that Indians were initially tolerant of those with differences.  They saw homosexuals as magic, because they were seen as both warriors and caregivers. His grandmother had no use for gay bashing and homophobia.  She says, “Who cares if a man wants to marry another man?  All I want to know is who’s going to pick up all the dirty socks” (p. 155).
  
• On p. 155, Arnold says that, “ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance.”
  
• Arnold catches one of his friends throwing up in the bathroom at school.  She tells him that she is a bulimic (pp. 105-109). Arnold likens her bulimia to his father’s alcoholism, noting that both of them act to relieve their pain.
  
• The book discusses racism the Indians face from white outsiders, white inhabitants of the reservation and, other Indians.  It also discusses the ostracism Arnold faces from his fellow Indians when he dares to leave the reservation to obtain a better education at the nearby white school (see, e.g. pp. 79).
  
• The novel also discusses the crushing effect of poverty on Arnold and the other inhabitants of the reservation.

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Other Helpful Reviews:

• Kirkus Review
  
• Good Reads
  
• Common Sense Media