Absolutely True

Ohhhh, some of these YA books really are good. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (like American Born Chinese*) is a book I might even be able to read again. Never has tragedy been so funny. Sherman Alexie writes a humerus-tickling, duct-milking story of a Spokane tribe kid who leaves the rez to save his own life. The rampant alcoholism that destroys his people (belying Tolstoy's axiom that all unhappy families are unhappy in different ways) is treated with the same deftness as the vagaries of his adolescent erections. Ellen Forney's cartoons/illustrations capture the whimsical pathos of Alexie's prose. I'm sitting here at the Children's Room desk wiping the last of the tears away. Where else can you find basketball, comics, and Tolstoy all mixed together?
AbTrue and American Born Chinese join with The Watson's Go to Birmingham - 1963 in a bittersweet minority triptych sure to rock the discussion house for any youth book club of over-privileged, pasty white kids ... and maybe some not so privileged ones. These are the experiences of American kids, realistic kids anyone can relate to, each one's story told by a master of his craft. Each one leads the outsider quietly towards empathy.
* see review below