Just finished reading Sherman Alexie’s Flight. I was asked to read it for assessment of school use. The first chapter had me adamant that it was completely inappropriate. By the end I was thinking, “Well…maybe.”
Alexie is just so gritty. His characters are coarse and vulgar. They grate against sweet, prudish, slightly virginal English teachers. However, they also reflect a reality that a lot of our students know only too well. I’m not into censorship, but I don’t have to teach a book I don’t like either. That’s a nice thing about professional autonomy. Not having prescribed curriculum or literature means we have a lot of freedom to teach process and encourage analysis using literature that is particularly relevant to our teens. For some kids, this will be a powerful reflection of their world.
Sherman Alexie is a Native American writer from Washington State. His books explore his world and observations of the interaction of his two communities. He has challenging ideas to both and this book reflects them.
It is the story of Zits, a kid whose native dad left, whose white mom died, and who has been shuffled through the foster system. He has to come to terms with his identity, his abandonment, and his anger. The method is essentially a series of parables. Zits travels through time to inhabit the bodies of whites and natives from Little Big Horn to his father. Watching the ‘native experience’ through other eyes leads him back to the beginning, and gives him a chance to make different decisions in order to attain a different outcome.
Alexie is accessible as a Native writer. His young characters are funny, ironic, and believable, but they’re gritty. Their lives are hard. Their experiences have been horrible. Alexie doesn’t sugar coat the misery, but he forces the protagonist (and therefore the reader) to decide whether he will allow the past to rule his future or whether he will carve a new path.
The hopeful message is what wins me over. He has used the graphic language and rebellious attitude of the first chapter or two to grab his audience. The time travel is confusing enough to keep them curious. The ending is satisfying. We all want to believe that everyone can have a happy ending.
Shawn L. Bird 
sorry! September 10, 2011
Tags: awakening dreams, awakening power, frustration, George LUcas, Grace Awakening, postaday2011, review., The Empire Strikes Back, writing
I just received my first ‘low’ review of Grace Awakening: a 3/5.
I feel so badly!
Not for my ego, because I have no argument with any of the points raised. No. I feel badly because this poor reader felt at the end of Book One: Awakening Dreams that she was left hanging in the air. She was irritated.
Oh dear. When I read her review, I recognised the feeling only too well. After all, I wrote about it here in the blog just yesterday.
She felt I’d given her The Empire Strikes Back.
Darn.
I wrote Grace Awakening as a single story in one six month period. When we decided that it would be better as two books, because of the two settings and character groups, the one thing I kept repeating to my editor was, “I don’t want anyone to have that Empire Strikes Back feeling!” We edited and added to fine tune the story arc with that specific goal in mind.
I feel terrible. I know I’m getting lots of great reviews from readers who are satisfied with the ending. They know there is more to come and some mysteries need to remain to connect the series. I still feel badly to have frustrated someone. I really do know how that feels. I hate it!
So if you’re a reader who felt there wasn’t enough resolution for you at the end of Grace Awakening Dreams, I promise you’ll be happier at the end of Grace Awakening Power. Grace’s loose ends are all tied up there. We’re going somewhere else for books three and four,so I am not going to torture you for years as you wait for books to come out. ;-P
In the meantime, please accept my apology about your frustration.
George Lucas never gave me an apology, and I’m still ticked off about it.
.
PS.
When Lintusen releases the paper version in a few months, we’re going to include both books one and two in an omni-bus. I am wondering what people think about having both e-books combined as one e-book as well, perhaps offered for 50c less than buying them separately? That means you’d be able to buy the first for 99c, as you can now. The second book is being released at $2.99, so both are $3.98. The omnibus of both books would be something like $3.49. It’d be kind of a 50c reward for people who already know they are going to want both because they’ve heard great things. What do you think? If you have an opinion about this idea, leave me a comment!
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