You're teaching The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? Go you. We obviously think the book is an important one (and plenty of critics, librarians, and other teachers agree). While this book presents a whole lot of opportunities to you as a teacher, though, it also comes with some pretty much guaranteed challenges. Don't worry, though—we've got your back.

So Many Bad Words and So Much Sex

Okay, so language and sex talk is a pretty big point of resistance to this book. No, not by kids—we've yet to meet a teen that doesn't bust out a few of these words in their own conversations, and reading them arguably makes the medicine (a.k.a. schoolwork) go down a bit easier—but by their parents. Parents love to freak out over the language in this book.

But here's the thing. This is Junior's diary, right? And if you can't use your authentic voice in your own diary, then when can you use it? To help nervous Nellies make peace with some of the word choices in this text, point out to them that Junior doesn't always bust out the crass language—he reserves it primarily for his personal and totally private diary. So he isn't modeling rudeness, per se, so much as he's just expressing himself.