Recap ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie

This is a book that makes you see people as people and challenges some of our misconceptions, perceived perceptions, and even, some hard cold tuths. There's moments of sadness, but it doesn't weigh down the whole book and make it a drudge to read. It's laugh out loud funny and yet very poignant. Moments that stayed with us such as Junior's anger about the alcohol abuse that has taken it's toll on so many of his own people, and the original intent of the reservation versus those who don't want to leave (or perhaps emphasizing that to a large degree they still serve their original purposes). For us this was a book to make you think without being preachy directly to you. It is the thought process of a young Indian boy trying to make sense of and make it in this earthly world. It tackles many issues in an easy to read format and shows that even though there are differences there are similarities among each and every person. The biggest difficulties aren't necessarily because of different ethnicities, sometimes the breakdown is within your own culture and you need to understand, accept, perhaps forgive and move forward. We all wish we could be more like Junior's grandma and her beautiful tolerance. We felt that this book was uplifting even with the sad parts and the ambivalent ending. There is a hopefulness, not just for Junior but for anyone who touches this book. We recommend it for 8th grade and up because of the age of main character, situations, and some language. We expect (as Neil Gaiman so aptly quotes on the back cover) that this book will be hitting both the best-books list as well as the banned books list in the next few years! Go Sherman Alexie! We loved it!

NEXT BOOK: Once upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris

The list of books read keeps growing...

I think it's helpful to periodically recap the list of books we've read thus far as a book group:

2008
Jan. - Cuba 15 by Nancy Osa & American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Feb. - A Great & Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Mar. - A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
Apr. - Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers (recap actually written this month - June)
May - Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins
June - Freak Show by James St. James

2007
Jan. - Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare & Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
Feb. - Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Mar. - The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Apr. - Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David
Levithan
May - An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
June/July - Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
August - Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac
September - Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher
Oct/Nov - Clay by David Almond
Nov/Dec - Eragon by Christopher Paolini

2006
June - Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
July - Hoot by Carl Hiassen
Aug - Luna by Julie Anne Peters
Sept. - Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Oct. - Hitler Youth by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Nov. - Blankets by Craig Thompson
Dec. - NO MEETING

Recap FREAK SHOW by James St. James

Well... James St. James needs to have a one act monologue show somewhere and it would be marvelous! His voice rings very loud and clear in his character Billy Bloom. Unfortunately St. James tries to merge his 20-something Club Kid persona into a younger teen version. While the book has its moments of being very funny and painfully overly dramatic, there isn't a lot of overwhelming sympathy for the main character. Billy lives inside his head and pretty much nowhere else. The plot (was there one) gets convoluted with trying to figure out if the outrageousness being written is happening inside Billy's head or for real, and whether or not it is truly as outrageous as Billy's declaration of it. Our group felt that Billy is not a character with which many teens (even drag queen teens) would really identify. Mainly because it is VERY clear that Billy has a very elite lifestyle - from Darien to Ft. Lauderdale and living in a self-described compound with a personal attendant - which tends to alienate many of the teen audience.

The book works hard to portray a "poor, unloved and abused drag queen" scenario, but our book club felt that the real issue wasn't the drag queen aspect at all. Instead the more serious, and relatively ignored, issue is Billy's bi-polar behavior. Although we are not convinced that this is a high quality GLBT book (good fluff, yes), the popularity of it speaks to us as it has been nearly impossible to get the book from a local library (most were either missing or checked out). Obviously the book is generating some sort of impact and we'd be curious to know exactly what it is! In the meantime, we're looking and recommending other GLBT books with solid, strong, positive messages for it's readers.

Next book: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Recap FALLEN ANGELS by Walter Dean Myers...

This is not a book for the faint of heart, which probably explains why it's often challenged. Our general consensus of the book was that it wasn't a book any of us would have read outside of book club, but we found it a profound (often profane) and honest piece dealing with minority issues in the military and especially during the Vietnam War. This is not your soft around the edges, hold the language for the minors type of book and it shouldn't be! War is hell! Myers crafts the wide range of emotions from excitement to fear; from optimistic to deeply conflicted thoughts giving each character personality and life (even as they face death). Any teen whose idea of military combat comes from video games where it's "fun" to kill people should take the time to read this gritty war novel. Adults uncomfortable with strong language or war themes will have a hard time with this book, but we strongly believe it is a quality book that deserves to read.