The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary is a first-person narrative by Native American teenager Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior", a 14-year-old budding cartoonist. The book is a bildungsroman, detailing Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision, upon encouragement from a reservation high school teacher, to go to an all-white public high school in the off-reservation town of Reardan, Washington. The novel has 65 comic illustrations by Forney, which sometimes act as punchlines while also revealing Junior's character and furthering the plot.

The novel is controversial for some of its content on issues such as alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, and sexual references, as well as for the tragic deaths of characters and for the use of profanity and slurs related to homosexuality and mental disability. As a result, some schools have banned the book from school libraries or inclusion in curricula.