Outside of a Dog » Book Awards http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org a book is man's best friend. Inside it's too dark to read. Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:52:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 One down http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/27/one-down/ http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/27/one-down/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:02:23 +0000 Barbara Pollock http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/27/one-down/ I just finished reading my first book for the 888 Challenge, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the 2007 National Book Award winner for Young Adults. It was hilariously funny, extremely sad and totally captivating. I read it all in one day and could not put it down. Based closely on the life of the author the story follows a year in the life of Junior Spirit a 14-year-old Spokane Indian living on the Reservation. Junior is a geek; he reads too much, is too smart, draws cartoons and is generally picked on and bullied by the other students at the “res” school. He does have a best friend Rowdy also an outcast. Junior decides after finding his mother’s name in a textbook as a previous user and breaking his math teacher’s nose to leave the “res” school and go to the all white school in Reardan “where the only other Indian is the school mascot.” Junior believes he will be an outcast at his new school also but soon finds himself with friends in many of the school groups, geeks, popular kids, jocks; he even makes the basketball team. But his life on the res is still a difficult, his best friend has now rejected him for going to the town school, his grandmother is killed by a drunk driver and his sister leaves home to find herself and is killed in a fire. Despite all of the pain he suffers Junior continues to strive to improve himself and in the end proves his strength and character.

Alexie has written several other books including Flight (2007) an adult book about a time traveling mass murderer and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1994) a book of short stories. He is also know for his poetry and the movie Smoke Signals a Sundance winner based on his short stories. Video’s of his acceptance speech for the National Book Award and clips from Smoke Signals can be found on Youtube.com.

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