Sherman Alexie’s first novel for young adults is the heart-wrenching/heart-warming story of Arnold, a 14-year-old budding writer/cartoonist living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Life isn’t so great for Arnold or Junior Spirit. His dad drinks way too much as do many of the people on the rez. His mother is a recovering alcoholic.
Arnold Spirit Junior is a bit of a mess; he was born with water on his brain that caused a series of health problems. He’s skinny, wears glasses, has ten extra teeth and gets picked on all the time by the other kids. With all this he still manages to be wry, funny, discerning (especially with adults' problems) and completely endearing. He has one friend, the angry, abused boy Rowdy who is his defender, confidante and eventually his enemy.
Most of the people he knows are terribly poor. The reservation is so poor, in fact, that on his first day of school in his new geometry class Arnold discovers he’s been given the same geometry book his mother had when she attended that school some 30 years before:
"It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it."
In his rage, Arnold tosses the book across the room and manages to hit the teacher, breaking his nose. That serves as a catalyst for what Arnold decides to do with his life:
" 'If you stay on this rez,' Mr. P said, 'they're going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. We're all going to kill you. You can't fight us forever.'
" 'I don't want to fight anybody.' I said.
" 'You've been fighting since you were born,' he said. 'You fought off that brain surgery. You fought off those seizures. You fought off all the drunks and drug addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.'
Article comments
1 - Armando Bernal
This book is excellent!! While I wish there was not the references to masterbation and 'boners' that might make it a "banned" book in the public schools, the fact that these things are in it give it great credility because when you write of teenage boys, you have to write about that. It's a great book. I think it can become a great book to use if people don't get hung up on those sexual references.
2 - heehee
havent red it but we r for school this summer and im rlly excited, should be an awesome read, and some of my friends have read it already and they loved it so im rlly excited...it's kinda hard to find a quality book these days that makes u want to read more when you finish...anyways, can't wait to check it out and everyone should read it.