The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

YA books get a bad rap in the book world. In plenty of cases this is widely deserved. Some of them are terrible, some good, some make you glad you are alive. This one falls in the glad you are alive pile 

I’m going to skip, unfairly maybe, over the social implications of this book. Furthermore, I’m going to bypass the fact that people have tried to ban it in plenty of school districts. Normally takes the Stud Terkel approach to banned book. “There are x number of pages in a book, what does it say about you if all you see are the dirty ones?” You could go further by saying there are X number of books.....but....

Past the banning books argument, I want to talk about how this book hits at a nerve a lot of adults they have. That nerve; what it’s like to be a kid. Not a kid in 2019, but a kid period. Adults forget what it’s like to be mixed up beyond belief. Unless you are around them all the time, kids are an anathema to adults. Even parents struggle. Part of this is by nature, part of it is the adult’s refusal to embrace the fact they were once that terrible/awkward/funny/upset/proud/happy. To say this book brings it all back is cliche and petty, but I will pay the toll on the lazy expressway and say it anyway.

When was the last time you felt utterly hated as a 13 year old kid? When was the last time you felt that period? Now, take that feeling and put it on your 13 year old self, and you get an idea what the main character of this book goes through. Then you heap on the layers of life on an Indian reservation, life as a person growing up in poverty, with a drunk father, trying to do well by themselves, trying to fit in, trying to fit in at a new school and with health problems. Get the idea?

Do not get me wrong here, I am not here admonish you adults that read this. I’m not. But please remember, if you can, what it was like to be 13 and having your best friend punch you in the face. If you can’t, that's fine. For the sake of fun, strip away any self-confidence you have, make it hard to understand what you’re thinking as much as you can, maybe pull off the layers of control you have built up, then go hang out with a bunch of other people doing the same. OR….READ THIS BOOK. Either way, you’ll get an idea of what it’s like to be a 14 year old kid, no matter the year.

We as adults think we have it soooooo much harder than kids. Nah. We just have problems that we have the where-with-all to correct, or avoid to start with.