aprilraintreeIn Search of April Raintree: Critical Edition, by Beatrice Culleton Mosionier (Critical Edition edited by Cheryl Suzack). Portage & Main Press, 1999.

April and Cheryl Raintree are Métis sisters growing up in Manitoba. Taken from their alcoholic parents after their youngest sister dies, the two are separated and raised in a variety of foster homes. April, the eldest, suffers abuse and neglect at the hands of one family and comes to despise her native heritage, longing for the safety and security she sees in the white world. Cheryl, the younger and more dark-skinned of the two, embraces her mixed heritage, reveling in Métis history and longing for a stronger connection with her Native roots. As the two girls reach adulthood, however, the complexity of racial relations in modern Canada and the weight of expectations come to weigh on both of them, shaping and influencing their lives in profound and unexpected ways.

This was a heartbreaking and engrossing novel. More than anything I’ve read lately, it pulled me in, bringing me into April’s world in a way that wasn’t easy to shake off when I put the book down. Told from April’s perspective throughout, the story was simply and straightforwardly written, which made it all the more heartbreaking at times. There was no turning away from it.

It’s often tempting to shield children from accounts of suffering and unhappiness. But reading this book, I remembered the stories I’d read even as a preteen that my adult self might consider too harsh for children (Jennings Michael Burch’s They Cage the Animals at Night is the one that comes immediately to mind). In Search of April Raintree tells a story that should be told, and one that, sadly, some children will not be unfamiliar with. Mature junior high schoolers, high school students, and college students interested in literature, the history of Canada, First Nations and Native American history, or just a well-written and hearbreaking story will enjoy this book.

According to one of the critical essays included in this edition, a ‘toned down’ version of the story was published in order to make the book more accessible to younger readers. Frankly, I think that any such watering down does children a disservice. We live in a world where bad things happen and people sometimes use bad words. Foisting a diluted story on young readers that pretends otherwise does them a disservice.