Arnold Spirit, Junior

Known by most people on the Reservation as "Junior," he is an Indian who is torn by his desire to achieve more than most Indians on the Reservation. Junior was born with a birth defect that he describes as water on the brain. Doctors predicted he wouldn't survive or would be severely retarded, but he escaped both predictions. He has handicaps, including eye problems and a lisp, that make him the brunt of jokes among his peers on the Reservation. He turns to cartoons as a means of expressing himself when he's unable to talk to other people. His cartoons indicate a great deal about how he sees himself and this is seen clearly in one of ht early cartoons of the book in which he is screaming, "love me." Junior is, in many ways, an optimist. He has seen more than his share of death...