Controversial book to stay on reading list

Antioch High School has agreed to form a committee that includes parents to review books after an assigned summer reading book drew protests because of its language and description of sexual acts.

Community High School District 117 Supt. Jay Sabatino said this afternoon that after reading the book, he and two school board members decided to keep it on the summer reading list.

“The consensus is we feel it is a valuable read, a good read… . We will continue to offer an alternative if someone wants one,” Sabatino said.

Earlier today, school board President Wayne Sobczak said he doubted the book — “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie — would be pulled from shelves as some parents wanted.

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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/06/parents_seek_to_ban_awardwinni.html

via Read Street:

The English Department at Antioch High School, in the Chicago suburbs, assigned [The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie] for the incoming freshman class to read over the summer. The book, which follows the misadventures of a 14-year-old American Indian boy attending an all-white high school, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, and was recognized by both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times in the children’s book category.

The book is described as having vulgar language and describing sexual situations, and these parents want it pulled, even though there is a second option for the assignment, Down River, if parents don’t approve of Alexie’s work.

I thought one school official, John Whitehurst, described the parents’ charge of the school condoning such language and behavior most succinctly:

“That is like saying that because Romeo and Juliet committed teen suicide, we condone teen suicide,” Whitehurst said. “Kids know the difference. Like it or not, that is the way 14-year-old boys talk to each other.”

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Here’s a fact: Some people want to live more
Than others do. Some can withstand any horror

While others will easily surrender
To thirst, hunger, and extremes of weather.

In Utah, one man carried another
Man on his back like a conjoined brother

And crossed twenty-five miles of desert
To safety. Can you imagine the hurt?

Do you think you could be that good and strong?
Yes, yes, you think, but you’re probably wrong.

Sherman Alexie, “Survivorman”; Poetry: The New Yorker (via curate)

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http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/trends/sherman_alexie_will_meet_with_amazon_reps_118016.asp

from Galleycat:

Following his disparaging remarks about Amazon’s Kindle in the NY Times and his subsequent clarification on a popular literary blog, author Sherman Alexie has agreed to meet with Amazon and “and listen to their arguments for the machines.”

Yesterday the author of the National Book Award-winning book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” said he felt unfairly vilified for taking a stand against Amazon’s popular e-reader. On his personal website, Alexie added that he finally accepted a long-standing meeting request from Amazon.

Check it out: “I have been especially humbled by those Kindle readers who, because of various physical issues, can only read with the machines. While I still have serious qualms about the technology, I have been challenged and emotionally moved enough to take a long-requested meeting with the folks at Amazon and Kindle and listen to their arguments for the machines. I’m on Amazon’s list of most-requested authors whose fiction is not available electronically, so now, thanks to the beautiful emails I received, I will do my best to enter the meeting with an open mind. And I definitely promise that I will not beat up anybody at Amazon or Kindle.” (Via MobyLives)

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plainoljane:

wikirocks:

This is the poem that the short story “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem” from Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians is based on. I know that I keep talking about this book, but it has turned out to be very special to me. The story is about a homeless Spokane Indian that sees his grandmother’s stolen regalia (it was a Native American garment) in a pawn shop and spends 24 hours trying to get $1000 to buy it. He is battling alcoholism, but he wants to be a hero and buy it back because his grandmother, who had died many years prior, meant a lot to him.

Admonitions

boys
i don’t promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
i will redeem
what you steal
i will conceal
my private silence to
your public guilt
is all i got

girls
first time a white man
opens his fly
like a good thing
we’ll just laugh
laugh real loud my
black women

children
when they ask you
why is your mama so funny
say
she is a poet
she don’t have no sense

-Lucille Clifton

That story was tragic and funny, heartbreaking and amusing.

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It was great, but it’s funny because Indians are so invisible and because my career has gotten so big that I think people…they don’t forget that I’m Indian, but it becomes very secondary to the success. When I was on Colbert I had a double consciousness or triple consciousness about it…I was in the moment but then I was also thinking that this is really revolutionary for Indians…a rez boy holding his own verbally with one of the best in the business. It was big. I was proud that I also have that artistic ability. It was fun. He was a great guy. He came into the green room afterwards and congratulated me, which was very decent of him.

- Sherman Alexie talking about appearing on the Stephen Colbert show and making Colbert “speechless”.

via (The Sherman Alexie Interview::Failbetter.com)

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http://failbetter.com/31/AlexieInterview.php?sxnSrc=ltst

The collection was originally titled Thrash. Why did you change it to Face?

Because when people would pronounce it and talk about the book in interviews they’d always call it Trash. And when my poetry editor emailed me once, even he typed Trash by mistake. So I thought, okay, I’m changing it. Although now whenever I get interviewed or talk about it people are calling it Fate instead of Face. And someone pointed out yesterday that if you look at the cover—I knew this was going to be a little bit of an issue, but I just let it go because the cover is so beautiful—someone pointed out that if you look at the title a certain way it looks like it says Taco.

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http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/03/09/native-american-writer-details-personal-struggle

deltafoxtrot:

By Byungkwan Park

“Just so you know, I got here because of rage,” said Sherman Alexie, an award-winning Native American writer and occasional comedian, in a half-serious, half-facetious manner at the Statler Auditorium in his Friday evening lecture, “The Partially True Story of the True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Alexie’s first young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the 2007 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. The lecture, which was based on this novel, presented an overview of the author’s childhood and development as a writer.

Alexie frequently elicited laughter from the nearly 600-person audience as he often joked about the many tragedies of his younger years.

As a six-month-old baby, Alexie needed brain surgery due to an abnormal accumulation of water in his brain, a condition called hydrocephalus. Although he survived the surgery, he suffered seizure throughout his childhood. The sickness, however, was only one part of Alexie’s rough childhood.

“I was sick, very sick, and very poor on top of that … Even your food was constantly reminding you of how poor you were,” Alexie said.

Alexie grew up eating food provided by the government with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Partly as a result of the reservation’s impoverishment, Alexie developed a rather bitter outlook on life as an adolescent.

According to Alexie, he was dehumanized constantly as a poor, disabled Native American.

“I personally hate any philosophy that dehumanizes human beings,” Alexie said.

“You don’t live like that and not collect pounds and pounds of rage,” he added.

Alexie pointed to the audience to address and belittle existing Native American stereotypes.

“You thought you were the ones colonized,” Alexie said sarcastically. “I wish we were the people that you think we are, and I wish you were the people in the Declaration of Independence.”

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