Junior's family is extremely poor and has limited access to opportunities. As a result, Junior has always been picked on by other people on the reservation. The Absolutely True Diary begins by introducing Junior's birth defects: he was born with hydrocephalus and therefore is small for his age and suffers from seizures, poor eyesight, stuttering, and a lisp. It includes both Junior's written record of his life and his cartoon drawings, some of them comically commenting on his situations, and others more seriously depicting important people in his life.

It is told in diary style, moving from the start of the school year to the beginning of summer. The book follows a fourteen-year-old Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as 'Junior,' living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation near Wellpinit, Washington. As a result, a small collective of schools have challenged it, and some schools have blocked the book from distribution in school libraries or inclusion in the curricula. Controversy stems from how the novel describes alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, sexuality. Īlthough critically acclaimed, The Absolutely True Diary has also been the subject of controversy and has consistently appeared on the annual list of frequently challenged books since 2008, becoming the most frequently challenged book from 2010 to 2019. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all- white public high school away from the reservation. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as 'Junior,' a 14-year-old promising cartoonist.

The true story of a part time indian