1. Why did Mr. P say `Son, you´re going to find more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation?

The teacher said that because he beliefs everyone in the reservation has given up. People further away still have their hopes and dream, the white people. So, the further Arnold goes away from the reservation the more hope he’ll get.

2. Give 2 examples of "black comedy" in the boo. Give quotes and page numbers.

““Well, you know, your mother helped me get a drink from the water fountain last night, if you know what I mean.”

And all I could say to my father was, “Ewwwwwwwwww.”

That’s one more thing people don’t know about Indians: we love to talk dirty.”

(There are no page numbers) -from chapter 20, Reindeer Games.

3. Explain the significance of the use of drawings in the book.

The drawings help to see how Arnold interprets the world around him and the way he feels about people.

4. Explain how Arnold is caught between two worlds and how this is connected to the title of the book.

Arnold is caught in between two worlds because he doesn’t belong with the Indians in the reservation anymore, that is because he went to another school outside the reservation. But he doesn’t belong with the kids on the other school either, he is an Indian, an outsider.

“I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other.” -quote by Arnold in chapter 17. He feels as if he isn’t a ‘full-time’ Indian

5. There are several themes in the book. Choose 3 from the list and give detailed explanations and analysis for each.

Hopes and dreams: Arnold still has hopes and dreams, while other people in the reservation have given those up. Arnold has even transferred schools to prove a point that his life isn’t set out for him already.

Education: education is a big part of the story, Arnold has transferred from a school in the reservation to a school with mostly white kids on it. Arnold is a very smart child, school means something big to him.

Poverty: just like most people in the reservation, Arnold and his family live in poverty. This has some impact on him, because he sometimes has to skip a meal. And also because of this best friend, Oscar, his pet dog, couldn’t get taken to the vet, but was shot instead.

6. How would you characterize the relationship between Rowdy and Junior at the end of the novel? Can the two ever really be best friends again? Are they part-time friends or real friends?

I think from the beginning to the end they were always real friends. Of course they went through hardships but in the end they got through it. I think the hardships that best friends go through make them best friends. All friends go through fights, which make them end up with a stronger relationship than before. Which makes them real friends.

7. While the Pow-wow sounds like fun, Arnold wants nothing to do with it. Why?

He thought the dancing and singing were great. Beautiful, in fact, but he was afraid of all those Indians who aren’t dancers and singers. Those rhythm less, talent less, tuneless Indians are most likely to get drunk and beat any of the available losers. And he was the most available loser. He was afraid if somebody would pick on him.

8. "Ever since the Spokane Indian Reservation was founded back in 1881, nobody in my family ever lived anywhere else. We Spirits stay in one place. We are absolutely tribal. For good or bad, we don't leave one another. And now my mother and father had lost two kids to the outside world."

Explain how Arnold's parents had lost two children to the outside world.

Indian families stick together like Gorilla Glue, the strongest adhesive in the world. Nobody in his family had ever lived anywhere else. They stay in one place. His mother and father lived within two miles of where they were born, and his grandmother lived one mile from where she was born. First their son left to go to school out of the Reservation, and now their daughter, after seven years of living in the basement and watching TV, she decided she needed to change her life. She moved out of the house, and started living somewhere else with her husband, outside the Spokane Reservation.

9. Mary describes her experience eating fry bread at a restaurant in an email to Arnold. Why is it significant that Mary can still get fry bread even though she's no longer on the Spokane Reservation?

The fry bread tasted like a Flathead Indian grandma had made it. A Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, making fry bread for all the room-service people. She didn’t think the fry bread was going to taste good, especially not as good as her grandma’s. But it was great. Almost as good as how her grandma’s fry bread would taste like. She thought it was significant because she would have never expected the fry bread to taste almost as good as her grandma’s because she was no longer on the Spokane Reservation.

10. What does it mean to "kill the Indian to save the child"? [5.40]

The Indian teachers were supposed to make you give up being Indian. Their songs and stories and language and dancing. Everything. They weren’t trying to kill Indian people. They were trying to kill Indian culture. They beat the rowdy ones, that’s how they were trying to teach Indian kids.