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

The book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie was exciting and a good book overall, I think that many people would enjoy it.

Some specific literary merits of the book would be the character development throughout this book and the description of the setting.

A couple examples of character development in this book would be how Junior, or Arnold as some people call him, changes from being a nobody at his new school in Reardan to becoming somewhat popular and dating a very pretty and popular girl. Another character development would be Junior making the varsity basketball team as a freshman and becoming one of their top players. He started as being not noticed and then moved up in the schools social status.

One other example of a literary merit in this book is how the author Sherman Alexie described the setting. The story line started out on an Indian reservation and then as the story goes on the main part takes place in a “white town” called Reardan. Alexie did a great job of describing this and made it seem like you were actually there.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an exciting, weird, and a great book all together. It is about a Native American boy who has brain issues and gets random seizures, yet he is a very smart kid. One day his teacher came to his house and told him that he deserved a better school, and a better education. So Junior decided to go to an all white school in Reardan, the next town over from his Indian reservation. Once he shows up at his new school no one accepted him because of the fact that he was a Native American, nobody respected him like they respected their fellow white people. After awhile at his new school Junior became the star player on the varsity basketball team, and the boyfriend of one the most popular girl at school, Penelope. Although Junior had a great life at school, his life at home wasn’t the best. He had to face his different family member’s death many times through the course of this novel.

This book teaches you many morals along with being a fun book to read. For example it teaches people not to judge a book by a cover, get to know the person first and it might change your mind about them. Another moral is no matter how bad the situation you can always get through it.

I recommend this book to middle school kids and up. It was fantastic and many people would enjoy it.