In Search of April Raintree
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.
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Persons
Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, Beatrice Mosionier is a Métis writer best known for her novel In Search of April Raintree, first published in 1983. A school edition, April Raintree, followed in 1984.
The youngest of four children, Beatrice was three years old when the Children's Aid Society of Winnipeg took her from her family. Losing both of her sisters to suicide-Vivian in 1964 and Katherine in 1980-compelled Beatrice to use her experiences growing up in foster homes to write In Search of April Raintree. Since then, it has become a beloved classic, read by generations of Canadians.
Most recently, she wrote the foreword for Overcome, Stories of Women Who Grew Up in the Child Welfare System, by Anne Mahon. She has written several other books, including a play and a short film, and she is the former publisher of Pemmican Publications. She now lives in Enderby, British Columbia.
Content
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
