50 Fun Facts About The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

In The Absolutely True Diary, whose name is written inside Junior's decades-old geometry textbook?

His mother's name, Agnes Adams, is written inside, proof that his school has used the same books for at least thirty years. Enraged, Junior throws it.

In The Absolutely True Diary, why does Junior's dad shoot Oscar, the sick family dog?

A vet cost too much, and a bullet was cheaper. Junior calls Oscar the only living thing he could depend on; he runs away but still hears the rifle.

In The Absolutely True Diary, who do Junior's mom and dad both say has the most hope?

White people, they answer at the same time. Junior promptly announces that he wants to transfer to Reardan, the rich farm-town school twenty-two miles away.

In The Absolutely True Diary, who is the only other Indian at Reardan High when Junior enrolls?

The school mascot is an Indian, so on his first morning the other kids stare at Junior, he says, like he was Bigfoot or a UFO.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does Junior's grandmother say last after a drunk driver hits her?

Forgive him, she says of Gerald, the driver who struck her as she came home from a powwow. She had never had a drink in her life.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what has fourteen-year-old Junior already been to forty-two of?

Funerals, he says, mark the biggest difference between his two worlds: none of his Reardan classmates has been to more than five.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does the rez insult 'apple' say about Junior?

Red outside, white inside: the nickname brands him a traitor for going to school in Reardan. When Junior first mentions it, his friend Gordy asks if they think he is a fruit.

In The Absolutely True Diary, how does the final one-on-one game between Junior and Rowdy end?

They don't keep score, playing on past dark until bats swoop at their heads and the moon hangs huge and golden over the court.

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, how does Junior's newly married sister Mary die?

In a trailer fire: after a party, a curtain blew onto a hot plate someone had left on, and Mary, passed out in the back bedroom, never woke up.

In The Absolutely True Diary, Junior jokes that his grease-drowned brain sounds like which food?

A giant French fry, he says, sounds weirdo and funny, so he opts for the more poetic line that opens the book: he was born with water on the brain.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does Mr. P, his nose broken by Junior's book, do on a home visit?

Apologizes to him, for the years he spent hitting Indian students and trying to wipe out their culture. Then he gives his advice: get off the rez, where everyone has given up.

In The Absolutely True Diary, how does Rowdy react when Junior says he is leaving for Reardan?

Punches him, after first screaming and crying. Junior arrives for his first day at Reardan with a black eye and swollen nose he calls his going-away gifts.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which Reardan jock does Junior punch over a racist joke?

Roger, a giant senior, is too stunned to hit back. By the unwritten rules Junior grew up with a fight should follow, yet the punch earns him respect instead.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what secret of Penelope's does Junior overhear in a bathroom?

She is bulimic, not anorexic, as she is quick to explain. Junior tells her not to give up, and within weeks the two are a sort-of couple.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what do Junior and Penelope both dress as for Halloween?

Homeless people: she calls her costume a protest, so they agree to trick-or-treat for spare change to donate. Three guys in Frankenstein masks rob Junior of his.

In The Absolutely True Diary, to which state does Mary run off with a poker-playing husband?

Montana, home of her new husband, a Flathead Indian she likes because he is not afraid to gamble. Nobody in the family had ever lived off the Spokane reservation.

In The Absolutely True Diary, how does Rowdy punish the Andruss triplets for beating Junior?

Cuts off their braids, and shaves their eyebrows too, after sneaking into the camp where the three thirty-year-olds lie asleep at the powwow.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does tough Rowdy keep hidden in his bedroom closet wall?

Old comic books, and goofy ones at that: Richie Rich, Archie and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Junior comes over almost every day so the two can read them together.

In The Absolutely True Diary, why does the dentist pulling ten of Junior's teeth skimp on Novocain?

He thinks Indians hurt less: half as much as white patients, so half the Novocain will do. All ten of Junior's extra teeth come out in a single day.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what did basement-dwelling Mary once dream of writing?

Romance novels, her old teacher Mr. P reveals. Junior laughs at first, then wonders what made her stop writing and go hide in the basement.

In The Absolutely True Diary, Mr. P says teachers had to 'kill the Indian to save the' what?

Child, he says, confessing that teachers like him once beat students to make them give up their songs, stories, language and dancing. He was killing a culture, he admits.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which motorcycle-riding friend of Junior's dad is shot over wine?

Eugene, a happy drunk who once gave Junior a ride to Reardan on his bike, is shot in a 7-Eleven parking lot by a friend too drunk to remember pulling the trigger.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which Reardan basketball squad does freshman Junior make?

The varsity team, though he had figured he was not good enough for even the C squad: Coach calls him the best shooter who has ever played for him.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what thrown object cuts Junior's head at the Wellpinit game?

A quarter, flung from the stands as he runs onto the court, hits him in the head. He has the cut stitched in the locker room so he can go back into the game.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does Coach do all night for concussed Junior in the hospital?

Tells him stories, since a boy with a concussion is not supposed to sleep. Coach adds that he has never met anyone as committed as Junior.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which words from Coach does Junior call 'the four hugest'?

You can do it, Coach says before the rematch with Wellpinit, right after picking him to guard Rowdy. Junior marvels at how amazing it is to hear that from an adult.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which biblical figure does Junior say Reardan was in the rematch?

Goliath is how he sees his team once the cheering fades: every Reardan player has a car and a cell phone, while some Wellpinit kids may have had no breakfast. He cries from shame.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does Junior do after snatching Rowdy's dunk in the rematch?

Sinks a three-pointer, and the crowd goes wild. Junior says one play can change your momentum forever, and Reardan goes on to beat Wellpinit by forty points.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does Junior wear to the Winter Formal with Penelope?

His dad's old suit, made of polyester. He expects to be laughed at, but Penelope finds the look retro and the two dance the night away.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which substance does Junior correct Mr. Dodge about in geology?

Petrified wood, Junior points out, is not wood at all: minerals have taken its shape. Class genius Gordy backs him up, then says he did it for science.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what do fellow misfits Junior and Gordy decide to call themselves?

A tribe of two, Junior declares, after Gordy explains that weird people have always been banished from the group. He wants a hug; Gordy tells him not to get sentimental.

In The Absolutely True Diary, how do classmates protest when Mrs. Jeremy mocks Junior's absences?

Drop books and walk out: Gordy goes first, then Penelope, then the basketball players. Junior, left alone with the teacher, can only laugh before walking out too.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does billionaire Ted bring back to Grandmother Spirit's wake?

A powwow dance outfit, which the art collector believes was stolen from her. Junior's mom answers that Grandma never danced and it does not even look Spokane, and the mourners laugh.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which old-time virtue does Junior call his grandmother's gift?

Tolerance, which Junior says Indians of the old days showed to anyone odd or different. She was also what he calls powwow-famous, known to Indians everywhere.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what has Junior's dad saved in his boot after a Christmas binge?

A five-dollar bill, wrinkled and damp, is Junior's only present. He is touched all the same: his dad had kept it through the whole binge instead of spending it on more whiskey.

In The Absolutely True Diary, where did Junior's parents meet when his dad was five?

At a water fountain: his mom, then thirteen, boosted the tiny boy up for a drink. Dad tells the story before basketball tryouts to show that you have to dream big to get big.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which instrument does Junior's dad, a would-be jazz man, still own?

A saxophone, which he even carries to the cemetery when the family tends its graves. In one cartoon Junior pictures him as the fifth-best jazz sax player west of the Mississippi.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which Russian novelist does Junior say 'didn't know Indians'?

Leo Tolstoy wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Junior, reading a copy from Gordy, answers that Indian families are all unhappy for one reason: the booze.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which Greek tragedy does Gordy show Junior to explain grief?

Medea, by Euripides, asks what greater grief there is than the loss of one's native land. Junior's reply: of course, we Indians have lost everything.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what does Penelope want to study at Stanford to be remembered?

Architecture, because she wants to build something beautiful. Junior cannot make fun of her for it: he admits that being remembered is his dream too.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which word for old-time Indians does Rowdy apply to Junior?

Nomadic, a word Rowdy looked up in the dictionary after reading about Indians who kept moving in search of food and water. Hardly anybody on the rez still is, he says, except Junior.

In The Absolutely True Diary, where is Junior standing, happy, in a dream Rowdy describes?

The Great Wall of China, Rowdy says, adding that Junior looked happy and that he was happy for him. He always knew, he admits, that his friend would leave and travel the world.

In The Absolutely True Diary, what did ten-year-old Junior and Rowdy climb near Turtle Lake?

A giant pine tree, from whose top the two boys could see the whole reservation. Junior still cannot believe they did it, any more than he can believe he survived a year at Reardan.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which animal's drowning haunts the legend of Turtle Lake?

A horse, known as Stupid Horse, sank in the lake and washed up on the shore of another lake ten miles away. A few weeks after people burned the body, the story goes, Turtle Lake itself caught fire.

Which prize for young people's literature did The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian win?

National Book Award judges chose it in the Young People's Literature category; the foundation calls the story heartbreaking yet funny. It was Sherman Alexie's first novel for young adults.

Which decade-long American Library Association list did The Absolutely True Diary top?

Most challenged books of 2010 to 2019: it ranked first, ahead of the Captain Underpants series and Thirteen Reasons Why. Objections cited profanity, sexual references and alcohol.

Which Marbles memoirist drew Junior's cartoons for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?

Ellen Forney drew the comic illustrations that stand in for Junior's own drawings. Her graphic memoir Marbles, about living with bipolar disorder, became a New York Times bestseller.

In The Absolutely True Diary, which U.S. state holds both Junior's reservation and Reardan?

Washington: Sherman Alexie himself grew up on the Spokane reservation at Wellpinit and went to high school in Reardan, and he dedicates the book to both hometowns.

In The Absolutely True Diary, if the world is broken dams and floods, what are Junior's cartoons?

Tiny little lifeboats is his phrase, from the first chapter. He draws, he explains, because words are too limited, while everybody can understand a picture.

Which Irish poet is credited with the epigraph of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?

W. B. Yeats is the name under the opening line: there is another world, but it is in this one. It suits a narrator who is Junior on the reservation and Arnold at Reardan.