Bookverdict.com

Gr 7-10 Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with bo...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

The line between dramatic monologue, verse novel, and standup comedy gets unequivocally—and hilariously and triumphantly—bent in this novel about coming of age on the rez. Urged on by a math teacher whose nose he has just broken, Junior, fourteen, decides to make the iffy commute from his Spokane Indian reservation to attend high school in Reardan, a small town twenty miles away. He's tired of his impoverished circumstances ("Adam and Eve covered their privates with fig leaves; the first Indians covered their privates with their tiny hands"), bu...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Junior makes the iffy commute from his Spokane Indian reservation to an off-rez high school where he's the only Indian. Though shor...Log In or Sign Up to Read More