Synopsis: Junior, aka Arnold Spirit, is a teen boy living on the Spokane Indian reservation. Deciding he wants a better education than the "rez" school can offer, he chooses to go to the all-white school in a neighboring town, condemning him as a traitor to his people.
Review: From meager beginnings... It's not only Junior's journey in the story, but it's also my experie
nce approaching this book. I didn't love this cover. I thought it was institutional. And when I read the jacket, I thought, "ugh, a contemporary boy book." I know that guys read too, but given my retail background, real-life boy books are a tougher sell in the YA market, even if the book does contain funny cartoon illustrations like this one. Despite these two issues, though, this book is really charming. Junior is an awesome protagonist. He may be geeky and poor with a big head (literally, due to his Hydrocephalus), but he's also funny, fearless, and resilient. When his dog dies because there is no money to take him to the vet, Junior is so depressed he thinks it might be better to just disappear. No one would miss him. He's just a total zero according to the people on the rez, but then he has this thought, "And if you subtract zero from zero, you still have zero. So what's the point of subtracting when the answer is always the same? So I gut it out. "
Junior could be one of those teens who is depressed and blames his family for everything that is wrong in his life. Seriously, no one would criticize him. He often goes hungry, his Dad is a drunk, his sister has run off, and he gets beat up almost every day, but at just 14, Junior is wise enough to appreciate the small gifts he is given. Returning home from a holiday drinking binge, Junior's father hands him a smelly, damp five dollar bill as his Christmas present, and Junior is grateful. Where most kids would be pissed at their parents for such a pathetic gift, Junior recognizes the effort it took for his father not to spend that money on booze. How cool is that? Yes, Junior's Dad is a drunk, but he's also the same father who does his best to come up with gas money to drive his son the 22 miles to his all-white school each day.
By using a fairly typical success story plot, Sherman Alexie allows Junior to shine through as a beacon of hope for teens and adults alike. He may get beat up by the people on the rez because he's a "white lover." And certainly he's not the most popular guy at his high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot, but Junior has the heart to pay attention to his dreams and try to make them come true. Thank goodness the National Book Award committee had the heart to adorn this book with it's award for Young Adult literature.
