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In Search of April Raintree

Critical

By Beatrice Mosionier
Edited by Cheryl Suzack
Contributions by Janice Acoose, Michael Creal, Peter Cumming, Margery Fee, Agnes Grant, Helen Hoy, Jeanne Perreault, Jo-Ann Thom, and Heather Zwicker
Imprint: HighWater Press

Categories: Fiction, Indigenous & Aboriginal, Coming of Age, 20th Century, Siblings
Paperback : 9781894110433, 343 pages, January 1999
Ebook (PDF) : 9781774920077, 343 pages, February 2022
Ebook (EPUB) : 9781774920084, 343 pages, February 2022

Table of contents

Introduction

In Search of April Raintree

Critical Essays

Deploying Identity in the Face of Racism

  • Margery Fee

The Problem of “Searching” For April Raintree

  • Janice Acoose

Abuse and Violence: April Raintree’s Human Rights (if she had any)

  • Agnes Grant

The Special Time

  • Beatrice Culleton Mosionier

“What Constitutes a Meaningful Life?”: Identity Quest(ion)s in In Search of April Raintree

  • Michael Creal

In Search of Cheryl Raintree, and Her Mother

  • Jeanne Perreault

“Nothing But the Truth”: Discursive Transparency in Beatrice Culleton

  • Helen Hoy

The Effect of Readers’ Responses on the Development of Aboriginal Literature in Canada: A Study of Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed, Beatrice Culleton’s In Search of April Raintree, and Richard Wagamese’s Keeper’n Me

  • Jo-Ann Thom

“The Only Dirty Book”: The Rape of April Raintree

  • Peter Cumming

The Limits of Sisterhood

  • Heather Zwicker

Contributors

Intimate, hopeful, and impossible to put down, Beatrice Mosionier’s timeless classic is thoughtfully analyzed in this critical edition.

Description

Memories. Some memories are elusive, fleeting, like a butterfly that touches down and is free until it is caught. Others are haunting. You'd rather forget them, but they won't be forgotten. And some are always there. No matter where you are, they are there, too.

In this moving story of legacy and reclamation, two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless in a broken system, April and Cheryl are separated and placed in different foster homes. Despite the distance, they remain close, even as their decisions threaten to divide them emotionally, culturally, and geographically. As one sister embraces her Métis identity, the other tries to leave it behind.

Will the sisters’ bond survive as they struggle to make their way in a society that is often indifferent, hostile, and violent?

The first edition of In Search of April Raintree, published in 1984, has since touched many generations of readers, becoming a Canadian school classic. In this edition, ten critical essays accompany one of the best-known texts by an Indigenous author in Canada.