There are many books that are challenged and banned in your libraries today. But there is one book that stands out to me. This book is called The Absolutely True-diary of A Part Time Indian by: Sherman Alexie. The book The Absolutely True-diary of A Part Time Indian is about an indian boy named Arnold Spirit who start to face new challenges in school and in his community. This book also deals with alot of adult content such as racism, sexual content, and the mentally disabled; therefor i think that middle schoolers shouldn't have access to.


The first reasoning i have tells about a racial comment that that main character made about his dentist.

“our dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people so he gave us half the nococain. what a bastard huh?” (p.3)

This qoute portays the sense of humor that the main character has in the begining of the book with a racist joke about indians and white people. He also goes on in the second paragraph to say a curse. But if we let middle schoolers read this book then they are going to think that its ok to be saying racist jokes to there friends or to people they know. It is showing a new curse word to the middle schoolers if the did not know that and would say it out loud because they would think its ok because they read from a book


Another unsatisfactory joke that the main character made is about how he has a stutter and a lisp

“I also had a stutter and a lisp or maybe i should say i had a st-st-st-st- stutter and a lisssssthhhhp”

Though this is a short quote it conveys how the main character has disablility like a lisp and a stutter. While the character is makinga joke about himself, the reader could take the joke the wrong way and could think its ok to make jokes about some disablilitys in their school on the street or even at home and the children could think its ok. There also could be children that when read this book or quote can get very self conscious about there disability or get worse for them.

This next example is very dreadful. It explains how his friend Rowdy has an abusive father andhow it effects his family

“His father is drinking hard and throwinghard punches, so Rowdy and his mother are always walking around with bruised and blood faces”

This is an awful thing to talk about in a book because it talks about child and wife abuse which is very sensitive to kids who have had this kind of abuse before. Parents would also not want there children to read about kids being attacked by there father and later saying in the book that it is “war paint”.

In the book the Absolutely True-diary of A Part Time Indian It also talks about other very sensitive things that middle schoolrs should not know and kids could get very self conscious about topic like these and i belive middle schoolers should not know yet.