In Honor of Banned Books Week

#3 Challenged Book of 2013

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie, Ellen Forney (Illustrator)

In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney, that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.

(summary retrieved from goodreads.com)

If ever you, jaded humans, need a slap in the face of perspective, this book would be a good place to start. An absolutely beautiful tragic story. Full of love and loss and life and cold hard reality, this is an important book for teens and adults alike. Junior is such a great character and it was great to see his development and how he handled incredibly challenging situations.

This book’s most frequent challenge was because of “Drugs/alcohol/smoking”. Alexie wrote about drugs and drinking. And his book was challenged. Because nobody drinks excessively or does drugs, so teens don’t need to know about their devastating and deadly consequences, right? This isn’t Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, there is no glory bestowed on the consumption of illegal substances. Characters that the main character Junior loves are taken away from him because other characters made incredibly poor choices. Choices teens can learn about in order to avoid repeating themselves.