My current book-in-progress (the one I’m reading just because I want to, not because it’s for one of my book groups) is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, and I was so pleased to see yesterday that it won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.  I love this book: it’s deeply funny, and by that I mean that the humor is intermixed with the deep realities of a teenage life.  And the depth extends beyond Junior’s observations on his own life; as I read it, I’m finding myself more and more baffled by the continued marginalization of Native Americans in US society.  How can things still be so bad?  How is that possible???  I’m only half-way through the novel, which I’ll try to finish today, and I’ll be interested to see how the novel progresses, and what thoughts Alexie leaves us with at the end.

And one last thought on the National Book Award:  I do wish that they would establish two new categories in place of the “Young People’s Literature” category.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to have one award for Young Adult Literature and another for Children’s Literature?  They are kinda different, after all…