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