I mean, that's one of the beauties of tribal culture is the tolerance of idleness. I mean, you don't have to become anything. the idea that I could still live on the reservation and have a completely acceptable life. How?Īs an adult, I can look back and I can say expectations or the lack of expectations. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. "And I'd always struggled with being named after him, but the existential weight of being named after your father really, really becomes clear when you're looking at a tombstone with your name on it."Ĭlose overlay Buy Featured Book Title Thunder Boy Jr. "As they lowered the coffin into the grave, his tombstone came into view and on the tombstone is Sherman Alexie - his name, my name," Alexie says. That nickname makes me sound like a burp or a fart." Over the course of Thunder Boy Jr., the boy emerges from his dad's shadow to become his own person.Īlexie tells NPR's David Greene that he found inspiration for the book in a surprising place: his own father's funeral. "That nickname is a storm filling up the sky. "People call him Big Thunder," the boy says of his father. Sherman Alexie's new children's book stars Thunder Boy Smith, a little boy who was named after his dad. Yuyi Morales illustrated Sherman Alexie's new children's book, Thunder Boy Jr.Ĭourtesy of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
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