This book is fantastic! It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s hopeful…it’s a lot for such a short book.
It’s about Arnold Spirit, a 14-year-old Indian boy living on a reservation (the “rez”). First, he introduces us into his life: he was born with an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in his brain, resulting in a lot of surgeries. He’s skinny, has a big head, and stutters AND lisps. He’s a pretty big outcast on the rez. However, he has a best friend, and a loving family (even though his parents have problems with alcohol and his sister lives in the basement, unwilling or unable to move on with her life after graduating high school), so he’s generally happy.
((OH and I almost forgot: he likes to draw, so the author had someone do illustrations for the book, little drawings of people and events, and some little comics, just anything that would enhance the story. The illustrations made this book more special, for me.))
However, Arnold decides to leave his school on the rez and go to another school 22 miles away. It’s mostly white, and he knows he’s going to get shit for being the only Indian there AND the people on the rez are going to think he’s turning his back on them, but he decides to do it anyway, because he sees the white school as hope, and the Indian school as hopeless. The rest of the book is about his experiences at the new school, his relationship with his best friend, and how his family deals with certain problems that arise that I don’t want to give away.
I’d recommend this book to high schools—the language isn’t exactly pretty in some places, but aside from that I think it teaches some good lessons, concerning alcoholism especially.
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