The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Subject: Junior is an adolescent teenage Indian who was born with water on the brain. As if being a freshman in high school isn't hard enough, Junior gets beat up on a daily basis and constantly struggles with the fact that he will grow up to be poor and drunken just like most of the other indians on his reservation. Sometimes all he has keeping his sanity in check are his cartoons and his best friend Rowdy, a tough brute of a boy who secretly has a warm heart. 

The day that Junior realizes that him and his geometry class are using the same text books as their parents, he finally cracks. After he chucks the book at his teacher's face he realizes that he needs to get away from his reservation, and fast. He decides to do what no other Indian has ever done and transfers to Reardan High School, a white, rich-kid school outside of the reservation. 

Though it takes a few months, Junior eventually adjusts to the new atmosphere. He even manages to snag the most popular girl in school, Penelope, as his girlfriend, and becomes a star on the varsity basketball team. As Junior becomes more accustomed to his new life, he struggles to figure out who his real friends are and who, ultimately, he is. 

Through moments of extreme isolation and experiencing too many losses in a small period of time, Junior learns total perseverance and is able to recognize the things that mean the most to him in his life. 

Occasion: This was author Sherman Alexie's first novel. He writes based on experiences from his teenage years living on an Indian reservation. He may write this on the occasion that few people really know about the struggles faced on reservations and he wants to inform people about this issue. 

Audience: Based on the simple vocabulary, the entertaining cartoons, and the contents which is only capable of a teenage boy, I would guess that this light-hearted, humorous novel is written for preteens and teens. With that said, it's a fun read and I think most adults would enjoy it as well. It could also be targeted for children and teenagers on Indian reservations who feel that their situation is unchangeable. Junior, or more realistically Sherman Alexie, is the perfect example of a Native-American who was able to escape the normalcies of the reservation. 

Purpose: I believe that Alexie wrote this novel mostly for the sake of entertainment. Reading it is thoroughly engulfing and at times hilarious. Getting inside the head of self-conscious and relatively nerdy teenage boy is bound to be funny. As I said before, Alexie may have also written this book to educate the public about the struggles of being an Indian living on a reservation tied down by poverty and alcoholism. 

Style: Alexi uses many short, simple sentences throughout the book. His style is very informal and adolescent. Throughout the story, Junior jumps from experience to experience, sharing his thoughts. The first sentence of the book pretty much sums up what the rest of the book is like. "I was born with water on the brain." Alexi's diction is simple and in some cases colloquial. It does a great job capturing the essence of a teenage male.

Tone: Alexi's tone in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is  sarcastic and very diary-like. Junior doesn't hide anything. When he writes he isn't of getting into the nitty-gritty details. However his writing is only-skin deep, never making the reader feel Junior's emotions. This is most likely because Junior is very blunt about death and other serious losses. It may also be because Junior finds the humor in every situation he experiences, that is why this is a fun book to read. Alexi could have taken a way more depressing approach considering all of the sad things that happen throughout the book, but he chooses to write through Junior who is a teenage boy with teenage boy thoughts and an overall light-hearted tone. 

On a scale of 1- nerdy preteen I would give The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian a nerdy preteen for it's wittiness and pure entertainment.