3 July 2014

Final Exam Two excellent examples of young adult literature that consider the themes of race, ethnicity, and culture are Day of Tears, by Julius Lester and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. These award-winning novels illustrate the fact that the viewpoints of authors who are members of the minority groups about which they write have a unique perspective that can be universally appreciated. That these works of literature have universal appeal is a testament to the writing skills of both authors, as well as to the way in which each of them has blended historical fact and fiction, to paraphrase Mr. Lester in his Author’s Note in Day of Tears (175). Although both novels furnish us with multiple examples of how African-Americans and Native Americans were, and in the case of Diary, still are being mistreated at the hands of the white majority, they nevertheless serve to affirm the fact that the resilience of the children exposed to these horrors transcends a mere discussion of race because resilience is part of the human spirit. Both books are replete with examples proving this thesis. These novels are of recent vintage. Day of Tears was first published in 2005, while Diary was copyrighted in 2007. Both authors are “insiders,” that is to say, they are members of the minority groups that are the subjects of their writing. The book jacket of the paperback edition of Diary proclaims that the work is “inspired by his [Alexie’s] own experiences growing up.” We learn from Lester’s Author’s Note that Day of Tears was inspired by an event mentioned to him by his editor, namely, “The Weeping Time,” which was the nickname for the largest slave auction in the history of the antebellum south (174). The auction earned this nickname, a double entendre, because of the constant rain during the weeklong auction, as