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
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