The Loss of one's Loved

Author’s note: I am writing this on the theme Coping with Loss in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

The book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about a Indian kid named Arnold who lives on a reservation and after a dispute at his school he transfers to the non reservation school that is full of white people. It is also about how a young adult copes with death around him.

The first death Junior has to cope with is the loss of his dog, Oscar, when a heat wave hits the Reservation and the family doesn’t have enough money to take him to the vet and get his fever cured so Junior’s father has to shoot him in order to ease his suffering. When Junior transfers he loses his best friend Rowdy who now hates him. Both of these shake Junior to the core, but he still gets back up and never gives up on himself.

The next death Junior experiences is one of the worst kinds when his grandmother dies after being hit by a drunk driver. When his grandmother dies Junior almost shuts out the world, but even then he could still think of his grandmother and how she would always tell him to never give up, so with the help of his friends and family he powers through again.

Even through all this it seems as though fate has it out for Junior when Junior’s sister leaves the Reservation, shortly after Junior transfers, and gets married to another Indian. When Junior learns that his sister has moved away he is heartbroken, but he realizes that she could come back to the reservation. The second time he loses her it is for good when a fire burns down her trailer with her in it and she dies.

For most people coping with the loss of someone treasured is common, for others it isn’t. For Junior Coping with Loss is a really common thing, but it is also something that is helpful to him n that he should never give up hope until the day he dies like his grandmother and his sister did.

Junior's Diary

Author’s note: I am creating a journal entry for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian in the point of view of Junior, the main character and what happened to his life after 10 years.

Dear Diary,

Now when I look back at my time at Rearden, I am glad that I transferred. I mean, at first it was the worst time of my life when Rowdy just severed our friendship, but I met my new wife Penelope at Rearden, and I met two other guys that I became friends with, Gordy and Roger. At first I was afraid of Roger because he was huge, but after the first few weeks he and I really got along, especially when I joined the basketball team. Yeah, I missed Rowdy and the whole rez hated me but after the death of both my grandma and my sister, everyone knew to just back off because whenever someone loses a loved one it is extremely hard on them. Even Rowdy stopped bullying me and by summer it was like we were friends again.

A lot of things happened to me that year, some bad, some good, but most all of it welcomed because it made me who I am today. Every single person I met, every single thing I did made me who I am today, the captain of the Montana Hydras, along with my co-captain Roger and manager Gordy. We started our team with the basketball players from both Rearden and Wellpinit, creating the first Indian-White team. Even though we started as a tiny team we quickly took off in our first season with a win-loss count of 72-10 with a starting streak of 20-0, and after a few seasons like that we got sponsored by a huge amount of sports companies.  But either in season or out, I am now always happy.

                           

With the help and support of my friends and family I was able to become a great cartoonist and writer, I even got a spot as a newspaper cartoonist.  I wrote the best book I have ever attempted, and the one writing accomplishment I am the most proud of are my journal entries from that year at Rearden. I have always had my journal so I decided to put together all my entries from that one year and I made it into a bestseller.  I guess you can say that everything I am is reflected in and grown from that writing.  That one year of my life is now the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

children of the lamp

Author's note: This is a short retelling of the story Children of the Lamp: The Akhenaten Adventure.

The book "Children of the Lamp: The Akhenaton Adventure" is the first book in its series, the series revolve around the adventures of two genie or "Djinn" as they are really known. The first book is where the two twin djinn John and Phillipa Gaunt, learn they are djinn, who are great and powerful beings, which sends their life on a spinning ride that will take them from New York, to England, to Cairo, and back all to save the balance of the worlds luck, of which the djinn preside over, so if you love adventure with a hint of magic then this book is for you.

Mr. P

Author’s note: I am writing this on a quote from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about a Indian kid named Junior who is born on a reservation. Junior has a best friend named Rowdy who is abused by his dad and in turn abuses everyone else. Mr. P Is their teacher who lives on the rez (short for reservation). The quote I am focusing on is this. Mr. P “We were taught to kill the Indian to save the child.” The reason this quote is important is because it is truly the starting point of the story and it sets off a huge chain reaction that starts with Junior losing Rowdy, and leads to Junior going to Rearden.

Mr. P says this to Junior and throughout the duration of the talk he explains to Junior how the school is trying to get all the Indians to give up their heritage but Junior is the only one who hasn’t. Mr. P tells Junior that because he hasn’t given up the others are going to try as hard as possible to make him give up so Mr. P tells Junior to try and get as far away from the rez as possible. When Junior tells Rowdy that he is transferring to Rearden, Rowdy thinks he is joking at first, but once realizes that Junior isn’t joking he severs their friendship. When Junior arrives at his new school he automatically feels uncomfortable being the only Indian at Rearden, And while soon befriending a few people he gets beat up by his own neighbors on Halloween.

And all of this is because of what Mr. P tells Junior. Junior’s life takes a turn for the worst, he is shunned by his friends and neighbors, barely able to fit into his new school, and all of this happens to him because of Mr. P.

The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian

Author’s note: I am writing this to show a conflict in the book The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian and 2 ways I think it could be resolved.

One major conflict in my novel is that Junior, who is a Indian and also the main character, has to adjust to his new school, and being the new kid and the only Indian in a school of white people, that is going to be really hard especially because all the jock won’t leave him alone. One resolution his grandmother comes up with is that if he just straight up punches the leader he will gain more respect in the school. On resolution I thought of is that he could become invisible so that they wouldn’t have any reason to bully him. Another solution I thought of would be to try to make friends with a lot of different people so that at least he would gain some respect between the jocks. This conflict is mostly a person vs. society stand point.

The U.S. Governments

Author's note: I am writing this because I wanted to see how many differences between our government and the government in the thirteen colonies there were. I hope you enjoy my essay.

The 13 colonies had a different way of doing things in their government than we do in ours. How many ways were they different. There were some minor differences and there were some major differences between the two governments. "What were the noticeable differences and similarities between us and them?" In my opinion we have a better government than them and my research will show you why.

Some things that I think our government has in common with the colonial government is that we both have leaders that tell us what to do. Both governments were/are made up of people that represent different "parties" or ideas on how to get things done. Both have taxes and both can have problems within them. The amount of people involved in both governments has grown. Both of our governments had a house of representatives voted in by the people.

Also some things that are unique to our government is that we have a democracy where "we the people" get to choose who leads us. We choose who are in the seats of power in Washington and our individual states, and we choose as a nation, not a colony or just one person, who we want leading us. In their government the king (who was all the way across the ocean) in England was the one who chose who the governor of each and every individual colony was and who composed the council for every colony. Their house of representatives was under the control of the governor and the council. Our house can act independently if they want.  In their government, the governor could do anything he wanted. The council could create laws and pass them on to the governor but the house had to give their bills to the council in order for it to go to the governor. If the governor didn't like what it was, he just said no and they couldn't do anything about it. Now our governor can veto things (say no) but the house and senate can override his veto and make it happen anyway.

 In their government the governor could do anything they wanted because they were like the king of that colony. The council could create laws and pass them on to the governor but the house of representatives had to give their bills to the council in order for it to go to the governor. All in all they had a government that was run like a monarchy.  Some of the things we have that they didn't have was we have three parties that all hold the same amount of power. We have our bills go through all three parties to be made into a law when they had to go through one at the least. I think we should be grateful we have the government we do.

 The differences I have listed are just the start of the differences. We took what was wrong with the old one and "fixed" it. As you read this and find differences I didn't list, please feel free to write them in the comment are and I will try to work them in. Thank you for taking the time to read this.