About the Author

A National Book Award-winning author, poet, and filmmaker, Sherman has been named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists and has been lauded by The Boston Globe as "an important voice in American literature." He is one of the most well known and beloved literary writers of his generation, with works such as The Long Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservation Blues and has received numerous awards and citations, including the PEN/Malamud Award for Fiction and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award.

Reviews

"A Native American equivalent of Angela's Ashes." -- Publishers Weekly "Sure to resonate and lift spirits of all ages for years to come." "Realistic and fantastical and funny and tragic-all at the same time." -- VOYA "The line between dramatic monologue, verse novel, and standup comedy gets unequivocally-and hilariously and triumphantly-bent in this novel." -- Horn Book "What emerges most strongly is Junior's uncompromising determination to press on while leaving nothing important behind." -- BCCB "Few writers are more masterful than Sherman Alexie." -- Los Angeles Times "Alexie's humor and prose are easygoing and well suited to his young audience." -- Booklist "Fierce observations and sharp sense of humor...hilarious language." -- Newsday "Exceptionally good...Arnold is a wonderful character." -- Miami Herald "[Alexie] has created an endearing teen protagonist in his own likeness and placed him in the here and now." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune "Deftly taps into the human desire to stand out while fitting in." -- BookPage "Nimbly blends sharp with unapologetic emotion...fluid narration deftly mingles raw feelings with funny, sardonic insight." -- (starred review) "This is a gem of a book...may be [Sherman Alexie's] best work yet." "Breathtakingly honest, funny, profane, sad...will stay with readers." -- KLIATT

Screenwriter, novelist and poet, Alexie bounds into YA with what might be a Native American equivalent of Angela's Ashes, a coming-of-age story so well observed that its very rootedness in one specific culture is also what lends it universality, and so emotionally honest that the humor almost always proves painful. Presented as the diary of hydrocephalic 14-year-old cartoonist and Spokane Indian Arnold Spirit Jr., the novel revolves around Junior's desperate hope of escaping the reservation. As he says of his drawings, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He transfers to a public school 22 miles away in a rich farm town where the only other Indian is the team mascot. Although his parents support his decision, everyone else on the rez sees him as a traitor, an apple ("red on the outside and white on the inside"), while at school most teachers and students project stereotypes onto him: "I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other." Readers begin to understand Junior's determination as, over the course of the school year, alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors lead to the deaths of close relatives. Unlike protagonists in many YA novels who reclaim or retain ethnic ties in order to find their true selves, Junior must separate from his tribe in order to preserve his identity. Jazzy syntax and Forney's witty cartoons examining Indian versus White attire and behavior transmute despair into dark humor; Alexie's no-holds-barred jokes have the effect of throwing the seriousness of his themes into high relief. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.