Sherman's Alexie's article, " why the best books are written in blood"

  Sherman Alexie's article, " why the best books are written in blood", published in the Wall Street journal, shows that kids need these books to face their monsters and give them ideas that will help them, and while these books being banned, their still the best. Sherman Alexie goes on to give examples of kids who have troubled lives, and says they need a good book to relate to. Sherman Alexie went on to say that Meghan Cox Gurdon needs to look at the bigger picture and see that these kids need these books to help themselves. He states that these books, like his own book, can't possibly traumatize or shock YA LIT readers. He starts to close with saying that's kids don't just want to read these books they want to use the books to help themselves. Sherman Alexie closes his articles with a sentence, " I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed". He's saying that I write these ( according to Meghan cox Gurdon ) bad influenced books, that are based on troubled teens, because I know what it feels like to be that troubles teen.

  Sherman Alexie uses a lot of craft moves to help people see what he is truly saying. One craft move I liked was that he started of the article by having a small momen t of when he was speaking to hundreds of teens, who've lost their homes and who truly have troubled lives. This helps because it shows people who banned his book and other books like it, that kids support and like his book ( absolute true diary of a part time Indian). Another craft move that Sherman Alexie used were loaded words, he used them to describe the examples of kids that have troubled lives, that want or need his book. He used words like rape, abused, murdered poverty, and other words like those to describe the lives of those kids.

  I agree with Sherman Alexie's article because I don't like the idea of these good books being banned. These books help the lives of troubled people, they don't make them worse, and overall it's a good book and sometimes good books need are the type of book that Meghan cox Gurdon thinks should be banned. The great thing is that people can use this book (absolute true story of a part time Indian) to overcome bullying or get rid of monsters in their life. The line that says hundreds of  YA LIT readers  went to see him speak, stood out to me because this shows that people support and need his book to overcome their troubles in life. These books should not be bannes.

-Artie Vidal

• 
  

Book: absolute true story of a part time Indian

10/7/13

Bullies will hurt you and get in your head.  You can ignore them but eventually you need to stand up and make a change.  In the Absolute True Story of a Part Time Indian, Junior (the main character) taught me that if you disregard your bullies you’ll be able to achieve your goals. The book is about Junior who was born with various medical conditions, like how he has too much water (brain gew) in his skull, and that he is Indian and lives on a reservation. All the people on the reservation go to the same school, grocery store etc.but Junior does a brave thing and starts going to an all white school. 

I found Junior teaching me about the idea of ignoring bullies and then you’ll be able to achieve your goals. When he first started going to the white school, the first thing people started to do was call him names like ‘Chief’ ‘Redskin’ ‘Indian’ ‘Brown Skin’. Junior didn’t stand there and cry like a baby, he ignored them and went on to do his school work.  That taught me a lesson to not stand around hopelessly.  He taught me to ignore bullies and to not listen to them, and he also got good grades because he ignored the bullies.

Another example of this is when Junior was being bullied by this white redneck farmer boy.  This time Junior stood up for himself and punched the bully in the face.  This taught me to not only put aside your bullies but also to stand up for yourself, face to face with your bullies.  The bully didn’t fight back because even though Junior was a punching bag for the bullies to begin with, now he (the bully) and others, realize that Junior is not going to tolerate the bullying anymore.  After Junior punched the bully in his face, people stopped bullying him.  It actually paid off.  This is a very important life lesson because people who get bullied can use this as an example.

Junior was nerd with many things that made him different and set him outside of the crowd.  In the beginning Junior was bullied and made fun of because of his ethnicity.  But now, after he stood up to his bullies, they treat him like a normal person.  I think this is good because no one should be singled out negatively for being different whether it’s a way they are or something like their skin color.  I learned from this to set aside your bullies and then you can achieve your goals, but still, eventually you have to put a stop to the bullying by standing up to your bullies face to face.  People everywhere can use this as an example for how to deal with bullying and achieve their goals.

                                                                        ----Artie Vidal