Sherman Alexie

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The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is not simply written. The author Sherman Alexie, uses several words like articulate, hormonal, and decrepit which displays that the novel could be read by people of all ages. This novel is wonderfully written so that people of every socioeconomic status can relate to real-world problems like poverty, racism, death and substance abuse. Alexie uses simple language to convey the thoughts that are actually inside people’s minds. For instance, in the first chapter of the book, the author introduces Arnold to the world (Alexie, 2007). In the very first sentence the author states that Arnold was born with water inside his brain. Furthermore, the author discusses that “cerebral spinal fluid …show more content…

One of the goals of the novel is to potentially expand the vocabulary of the audience. The author put children’s actual thoughts onto the pages because everyone doesn’t understand complex texts. The majority of children probably want to read however, if they have to constantly read words that reminds them of rocket science they will become discouraged. Moreover, when the author uses words like decrepit he gives an ample amount of context clues so that children can get the gist of what a particular word means without having to look at a dictionary. The text implies that Alexie wants children to be able to find out what words mean by simply looking at the words on the pages. As previously stated, the author also discusses very serious issues like poverty, substance abuse and the death of several characters who had relationships with Arnold. For example, at the beginning of the novel the author discusses how terrible poverty is by stating that “Poverty equals an empty refrigerator plus an empty stomach” but, he makes a joke about it saying that doesn’t worry because he knows that his parents will eventually make sure that he eats a meal (Alexie,