RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME

A. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Smith, Cynthia Leitich. 2001. RAIN IN NOT MY INDIAN NAME. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN 0688173977

B. PLOT SUMMARY
Fourteen year old Rain is just emerging from her grief over the death of her best friend, Galen, six months ago. Complicating her return to awareness are the issues common to her age such as sex and self awareness. Her Native American heritage, family, small town politics, Galen’s mother, and “second-best” friendship all impact Rain’s recovery from grief.

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Smith creates a story of life as the main character, Cassidy Rain Berghoff, emerges from her journey of grief following the death of her best friend. Smith imbues Rain with traits universal to teens. Coming of age, self-awareness, and sexual awareness are part of growing up. Who am I? Intensifying these feelings is the death of her friend, Galen, six months earlier. Rain’s character is insecure in her heritage, misses her deceased mother, feels unconnected to her military father, and wonders about the change in her older brother. Smith has Rain emerging from the isolation of her grief to realize that life has moved on and things are different. Smith depicts Rain as being tired of her self-imposed isolation and ready to rejoin life as it is happening now.
Smith uses Rain’s journal entries to begin each chapter keeping the focus on her thoughts and feelings. Multiple story lines are entwined throughout and around Rain’s grief. Rain’s brother and girlfriend become engaged and pregnant, her grandfather vacations in Las Vegas and remarries, her Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp, and the political machinations of Galen’s mother are at once separate and a part of Rain’s story.
A tribal member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Smith includes many cultural markers in this story. Early in the book, Smith identifies Rain’s heritage. Rain states, “I’m Muscogee Creek-Cherokee and Scots-Irish on Mom’s side, Irish-German-Ojibway on Dad’s.” She continues with comments about her Gramma and her father’s people in Michigan. Rain doesn’t want to be a part of Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp but worries about the disrespect of not joining. She asks to take photos of the camp members and worries when the reporter doesn’t show respect. Smith shows Rain and her brother Fynn as contemporary young adults knowledgeable and enthusiastic about computer technology. During the book, Rain’s second-best friend, Queenie, alludes to having a Native American heritage; her great-grandfather was a Seminole. In a journal entry Smith shows the conflict between cultures when Flynn changes his college application from Native American to White when his father thinks it is too personal. Smith also comments on the physical features of the characters. Spence’s green eyes kept him from passing as a full blood. Smith used specific names and locations throughout this book.

D. REVIEW EXCERPTS
Horn Book (Spring, 2002)
Fourteen-year-old Rain, of mixed Native American heritage, is devastated by her best friend's death. She comes out of her self-imposed seclusion to shoot photos for a local newspaper feature on a summer youth program for Native Americans in her Kansas hometown. The engaging first-person narrative convincingly portrays Rain's grieving process and addresses the varying degrees of prejudice she encounters.
Kirkus Review (May 1, 2001)
Tender, funny, and full of sharp wordplay, Smith's first novel deals with a whole host of interconnecting issues, but the center is Rain herself. At just 14, Rain and her best friend Galen promise always to celebrate their birthdays; hers on New Year's Day, his on the Fourth of July. They had just begun to see themselves not just as best friends but as girl and boy that New Year's Eve night, when Galen is killed in a freak accident. Rain has already lost her mother and her Dad's stationed in Guam. She's close to her Grandpa, her older brother, and his girlfriend, who realize her loss and sorrow but have complicated lives of their own. Her response to Galen's death is tied to her tentative explorations of her own mixed Native American and German/Irish heritage, her need and desire to learn photography and to wield it well, and the general stirrings of self and sex common to her age. Rain has to maneuver all of this through local politics involving Galen's mother and the local American Indian Youth Camp (with its handful of local Indian teens, and Rain's erstwhile "second-best friend" who is black). What's amazing here is Rain's insight into her own pain, and how cleanly she uses language to contain it. (Fiction. 11-14)
School Library Journal (June 1, 2001)
Gr 5-9-Rain and Galen have been friends forever, but for Rain's 14th birthday, the thrill of finding that her burgeoning romantic feelings are being reciprocated puts the evening into a special-memory category. The next morning, she learns that Galen was killed in an accident on the way home. Plunged into despair, Rain refuses to attend the funeral and cuts herself off from her friends. Skipping to six months later, the main portion of the story takes place as she thinks about Galen's upcoming birthday and summer plans are complicated by the girl's Aunt Georgia's Indian Camp and political efforts to cut its funding. Rain participates in nothing and her family members, loving though they are, seem preoccupied with their own needs and concerns. Gradually, Rain's love of photography resurfaces and lands her an assignment with the local newspaper. She becomes involved in examining her own heritage, the stereotypical reactions to it, and her own small-town limitations. There is a surprising amount of humor in this tender novel. It is one of the best portrayals around of kids whose heritage is mixed but still very important in their lives. As feelings about the public funding of Indian Camp heat up, the emotions and values of the characters remain crystal clear and completely in focus. It's Rain's story and she cannot be reduced to simple labels. A wonderful novel of a present-day teen and her "patchwork tribe."-Carol A. Edwards, Sonoma County Library, Santa Rosa, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.


C. CONNECTIONS
Students can discuss the stages of grief and the importance of grieving to the healing process.