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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When the Rain Sings is a book of poems written by young Native people from several tribal nations: Ojibwe, Lakota, Omaha, Navajo, Cochiti/Kiowa, O’odham, Yaqui, Hopi, and Ute. When the Rain Sings was first published in 1999. The story behind the book is included in this new edition, which is dedicated to Lee Francis, the founding director of Wordcraft Circle. Through the committed work of Lee Francis and others, we’ve got more Native writers than ever before.

via (American Indians in Childrens Literature)

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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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Big Big Night at the Trickster Gallery! « on the prairie diamond

Sixteen indigenous writers from around the country read at the Trickster Gallery, part of the American Indian Center of Chicago during the AWP annual conference. Over 100 people attended the reading. Other indigenous authors in the audience were Eric Gansworth, Deborah Miranda, Gwen Griffin, Erica Wurth, and many others.

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http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=668964

There is no other writer who can better convey the mood of Seattle at this early stage of the apocalyptic 21st century: It’s so fucking funny that sometimes you have to cry

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http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=631015&hp

A Sonics Love Story

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deltafoxtrot:

All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms. Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.

The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.

If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender and in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian man then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture. If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so white that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers.

(The Indian woman) should be compared to natural brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water.

If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret. Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed. Yet, Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm.

Indian men, of course, are storms. They should destroy the lives
of any white women who choose to love them. All white women love Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust
at the savage in blue jeans and t-shirt, but secretly lust after hlm. White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures. Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey.

There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted attack. Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds.

Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visions if they are in love with Indians.

If a white person loves an Indian, then the white person is Indian by proximity.

White people must have an Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half breeds and obviously from horse cultures.

If the interior Indian is male then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man.

It the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is inside a white Woman. Sometimes there are complications.

An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman can be hidden inside a white man. in those rare instances, everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn about their horse culture. There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven.

For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gender not important, should express deep affection in a child-like way.

We should all be reminded that we are children. We should learn about geometry: circles and squares, parallel lines and intersections.

In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written,
all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.

Written by Sherman Alexie (Coeur d’Alene)

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The oral tradition gave me the rhythm, the repetition and even the music that shaped my writing

N. Scott Momaday

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