Ryan, Dawn, Olivia and I met to discuss the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. We all concurred that the novel was fantastic and compared it’s style to that of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney, because of it’s use of humor and drawings to engage the reader and it’s universal appeal.  The group also reached the consensus that the novel would be best for ages 13 and up for reasons of talk of suicide, and self love.  The pervasive idea that Native American Indians were treated so horrifically, and still are in the current day and age was appalling to the group.  We were aghast that Junior had to have ten teeth removed at the same time with little anesthesia….how inhumane and gut wrenching for us to read and acknowledge what happened in the not so distant past. This led us to talk about racism against other ethnic groups as well as racism around the world. It was difficult to pull the group back  and remind them that the United States of America is not the only country that deals with racism and that it is endemic to the majority of countries in the world. This group discussion was the most intense one and brought out raw feelings and emotions from several of the participants.