The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
Published by Andersen Press: London, 2015 (2007). This book was recommended to me as a book that could potentially be studied at a Year 10 level. It tells the story of Arnold Spirit (aka Junior), a native-American Indian living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. After an altercation with a teacher and subsequent challenge to succeed, Junior transfers to the non-Reservation school Reardan. There he seeks to make friends, falls in love, and joins a basket-ball team, playing against his former friends and relatives. The interesting element of the story, and one that could be a good study, is the fact that Junior struggles to fit in both in the 'white' world of Reardan and the Indian world of Spokane, being seen as an outsider in the one world and a traitor in the other. He also struggles with his own self-worth and the 'limitations' of life as an Indian. The fact that the book is 'semi-autobiographical' is also interesting. This all leads itself to fascinatin...