Wow, what a great story. Coming from Oklahoma, (my husband is a card carrying Creek Indian), I just had to read him passages out loud. Drunk, gambling Indians is such a horrible stereotype, but so true! (for him at least!)
This is the story of Arnold, an Indian that lives on a reservation, and never dreams of getting out until he hits his teacher in the head with a book and gets expelled. Hilarity ensues, but emotion and real feelings are also involved. This book is a National Book Award Winner, and for many good reasons. Arnold is outcast from his tribe when he leaves the reservation to go to a different school. He loses his best friend Rowdy, but I was wondering thoughout the story if Rowdy was really a good friend at all! Rowdy is violent, has no goals, and punches Arnold in the head even though he knew it could be fatal. (Arnold has too much brain grease).
This is a heartfelt story of a real boy, struggling to fit in, and actually make something of himself. I completely reccommend this book to any adolescent readers. I would love to use this as a read aloud in my classroom...but I might have to edit out some of the masturbation scenes. However, I would hate to do that, because masturbation is a big part of Arnold's life. ha! I won't say anymore because I want everyone to read it for themself!
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Stephanie:
I hadn't thought about Rowdy not being a good friend for Arnold to have in the first place. Good point! Sometimes when I am reading these really sad stories I lose perspective regarding what really constitutes a loss. Arnold had very few friends to begin with, so losing Rowdy's friendship seemed pretty tragic. Even though Rowdy was a very toxic character. Although his short appearances after that cracked me up. I liked when he wrote Arnold an e-mail about Penelope. Rowdy told Arnold that he was sick of how Indian guys treat white women like bowling trophies. I just found that humorous.
Deanna
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