RAINY

A perpetual “wiggle-worm” and already kicked out of three schools, ten-year-old Rainy Tucker has ADHD, and she has it bad. Summer camp in Maine brings another set of problems, as the hyperactive girl must abide by (but constantly fails to follow) new rules and tries to make (but quickly loses) friends. Unlike Gantos’s Joey Pigza, Rainy takes no medication. Aside from a few family tactics and an understanding counselor who helps her (but with few specific examples), Rainy’s disability is never treated behaviorally either. When intense curiosity and grief from her dog’s death drive Rainy to row across a lake and climb a dangerous, rocky cliff alone, she never grasps the severity of the situation or her expulsion from the camp. In an author’s note, Dean does explain her own battles with ADHD as a child in pre-Ritalin days. Other straying subplots, such as racism among African-Americans, are not resolved any better than Rainy’s problem. However, despite the story’s shortcomings, the very clear picture of how Rainy’s mind works will bring acknowledgment to children suffering from ADHD and understanding to those who don’t. (Fiction. 9-12)