April Raintree

This book is read by every Aboriginal girl growing up. (By Aboriginal I mean Indian, First Nation, Native American, Metis girls.) This book hits home, thinking about the book makes me cry, because I related so much to the characters in the book, this book portrays the reality of an aboriginal girl/woman living in canada. This book is a must read for everyone. Yes, it's sad, but that's reality.. It's an awesome book for aboriginal and non-aboriginals to read.

Based on her own life and experiences as a Canadian First Nations family whose kids were placed in foster homes, Beatrice Culleton has improved her 1984 juvenile classic with an update, fleshing out her characters better, and providing some transitions that were needed. Culleton was raised in non-Native foster homes because of her parents' alcoholism. Both her sisters (reduced in the book to one) committed suicide, in 1963 and 1980. (Suicide remains the largest death cause of Indian teenagers, and percentagewise, Indian suicide outstrips tyhat of any other ethnic group.) I don't know if Culleton was gang-raped, as her main character April is, but that scene has all the violence, fear, and horror of a real experience being told. Certainly it has happened, and just about that way to many young Native women unprotected in cities. April can (her sister can't) pass for white, so -- after their separate foster-home experiences (Cheryl's positive, April's very negative), April has a Cinderella marriage. But when the rich upper-class family she marries into learn she is Indian, they reject her (she was getting bored with their life -- shopping and social charity work -- anyway) and she eventually realizes a goodly amount of money from the divorce. But Cheryl, a bright college student and hopeful Indian activist has become a drunk, causing strain between the sisters who live together in the house April's divorce bought. It gets a lot worse when several white men drag April into a car and rape her, mistaking her for her sister (who is hooking to buy her booze). With many typical racist remarks about how squaws love this. The remainder of the story includes the stress on April that the trials of the rapists cause, a possibly rewarding relationship with a white lawyer who she is very thorny with, Cheryl's suicide and April's determination to raise her sister's illegitimate boy. There is a note of hope in this ending: that April may be able to keep the next generation from alcohol, and involve him with elders and others at the Indian Center, where April now works. A note of fear just behind it. Culleton herself is (though successfully established) still full of fear, and the society she lives in is still a frightening place for a Native woman. One of the few books that can communicate to non-Indian as well as Indian teens some of the realities of contemporary urban Indian life. It's a powerful story of the lives of so many Indian women (and children) forced to leave their reserves, and thrown into city life. April is not shown as a conquering heroine, but as an ordinary young woman, whose life unfolds as she grows and shapes her own identity , buffeted by tragedy, but continuing. It has become a Canadian young adult classic, and deserves wider readership in the US too. Reviewed by Paula Giese, Native American Books website editor, http://www.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/books/bookmenu.html