The Completely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

That being said, the Seattle Public School District library/media center collection policy states that materials added to the collections will “help students gain awareness of our pluralistic society” and “motivate students…to examine their own duties, responsibilities, rights and privileges as participating citizens in our society, and to make informed judgments in their daily lives” (seattleschools.org). It has been argued that Alexie’s The Completely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian does this by introducing new, complex, real world situations that the teenagers reading the book might not be privy to. However, the policy also states that materials selected for the collection will “contain appropriate subject matter for the age, social/emotional development, ability level, learning styles, and cultural diversity of the students for whom they are selected” …show more content…
It seems, though, that most of the concerned parents and community members who seek to challenge this book do not seem to be arguing whether or not the book meets the first two mentioned requirements; instead, they are arguing that the book is not age appropriate. Several have argued that the book is more suited for college classes and should not be found in high schools (Fuller, 2014).
It seems, then, that the major concern with this book—though there are many others in addition to the ones mentioned previously—is age appropriateness. The author of the letter seems to be requesting a blanket removal from all school libraries/media centers—with no consideration for the age group that library serves. Most teen and parent reviewers on commonsensemedia.com agree that the book is appropriate for ages