The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Number of Pages: 230 pages
My Rating: 5/5

Junior may only be fourteen, but he knows living on the rez is a ticket to nowhere, so when one of his teachers tells him to get off the reservation, he enrolls in high school in a nearby white town the very next day, even though it feels like a betrayal of his family and friends and everyone he knows.

I had heard a lot of good things about this book and had it on my wishlist for ages. When I finally got it in the mail today, I ended up reading it right away. It's young adult, has a lot of illustrations, and a very conversational tone, so I zipped right through it. There's so much to it, though. It's a quick read, but it's not light reading. And it's just as awesome as everyone said it was.

On a less awesome note, I got a UK version of this and uh, I know that not all Native Americans are dark-skinned, but they could have given him some pigment. It says Indian on the cover, after all. They're not fooling anyone into thinking it's about white people, so wtf?

Mooch from BookMooch.

Comments

[sanguinity]

Uh? I don't have a copy to hand, but Junior isn't light, is he?

(My partner just looked at it and said, "Is that Harry Potter?")

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

He calls himself brown, which could just be metaphorical. That's the only mention, other than even more metaphorical lines like chocolate and charcoal. He's really closely based on Alexie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sherman_Alexie.jpg), though, so I wasn't imagining someone the palest shade of skin possible without being albino, which is what the cover went with.

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

And I'd think if he was noticably 'light' it would've come up in the book, considering how upfront racial politics are.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

It is totally Harry Potter! WTF? (I feel certain that Ellen Forney would have drawn them a decent cover if they'd asked.)

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it does look like Harry Potter now that you mention it.

[alias_sqbr]

Huh. The copy I read had that cover, but I think I just read it as one of Junior's black and white drawings of himself with a coloured background (like this comic)

But looking at it again he's not pure white (like paper), he's a very pale pink/brown.

And given the tendency for POC characters to be whitewashed, "happening" to use a style where POC characters are "white" would not be benign anyway, and the style would look just as good with his skin a flat brown and the background a pale blue or something. Hmm. *pokes self for not thinking of this at the time*

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if it were pure white I would have assumed it was one of his drawings, but it has just enough skin color to make me go "uh...okay?" It looks like the absolute palest you could have it and have it still be visible, which, yeah, considering the trend, seemed a little suspicious to me.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, it's pretty dodgy.