Sunday, June 30, 2013

bookaday 7: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

So there's been a bit of a gap in my #bookaday attempt, but yesterday was my first official day of summer holidays, so let's consider my earlier blog entries to be appetizers before the summer feast!

Yesterday was an All About Me day.  Between naps and shopping, I pulled a book off the shelf and got to reading.  My first selection of summer?  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

This is an underdog story about an aboriginal teen from the Spokane reserve who makes the decision to attend school off the reserve and struggles with his identity as he straddles two worlds.  Written with humour and stark honesty, I think this book would be a hit with any teenager.  I caught a tiny bit of a CBC radio program while driving around the other day and this book was being used as a class text (high school? university?  I'm not sure).  I think this book would be a great addition to a course syllabus, or great for a young adult book club.  (It's a National Book Award winner, so clearly I'm not the only one who thinks it's amazing!)

Four out of five stars for this one.  Beautiful language and creative illustrations.  (I'm holding back one star because the sports glory stories--this time it's basketball--are always a little bit corny for me.)

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