59 pages • 1 hour read
Ann M. MartinRain Reign
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Who I Am—A Girl Named Rose (Rows)”
The book’s protagonist, Rose Howard, introduces herself and her family to the reader. Martin presents the narrative as an explicitly stylized story; in other words, Rose knows she’s narrating the novel’s events to the reader. She also understands that she is the protagonist: “This is how you tell a story: First, you introduce the main character. I’m writing this story about me, so I am the main character” (4). Rose is almost 12 years old and is in the fifth grade in the small town of Hatford, New York. She has been held back at school because she has high-functioning autism, which makes it hard for her to learn in a mainstream classroom setting, especially in a smaller school district with relatively few resources for students with autism. Some of the challenges Rose faces in such an environment are alluded to in this chapter.
Rose is fascinated by homonyms and sprinkles them throughout the text (for example, in the title of this chapter, the name “Rose” is followed by its homonym “Rows” in parentheses). She describes her family: She’s an only child and lives with her father, Wesley. Rose believes her mother abandoned her and Wesley—she says her mother “ran away”—when she was about two years old, but later in the book her uncle Weldon will tell her that her mother actually died at that time. She has a special bond with her uncle, who also lives in Hatford and is patient and understanding with her. In contrast, Wesley is impatient and dismissive of his daughter’s needs as a person with autism, wanting her to act in ways that he considers “normal.” This dichotomy is exhibited in this chapter when Wesley crumples up a written request from Rose’s teachers for special meetings to monitor her progress and Weldon offers to go to the school in his place.
Chapter 2 Summary: “My Dog, Rain (Reign, Rein)”
Rose describes her dog, Rain, a small yellow Labrador mix, and promises to relate the story of how she got Rain almost a year earlier in a later chapter. Rose describes her after-school routine with Rain. Wesley can find only intermittent work at a local garage. If he’s out of work, he spends time at a local bar drinking, leaving Rose and Rain alone at the house. Rose is tasked with feeding herself, her father, and Rain. Wesley has a low tolerance for Rain, sending her to Rose’s bedroom if he’s in a bad mood or thinks the dog is misbehaving.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Rules of Homonyms”
Rose describes the rules of a game she plays with homonyms. She keeps a running list of new homonyms that she discovers and has developed rules to help her decide whether to include a homonym on the list or not. Weldon plays the homonym game with her and is invested in her list. Rose is strict with herself about having to rewrite the rest of the list if she doesn’t have room to fit in a new homonym on the sheet of paper. One of Rose’s classmates points out that if she kept the list on a computer, she wouldn’t have to rewrite the rest of the list when she found a new homonym, but Wesley refuses to buy any technology for their household, like a DVD player, computer, or cell phone.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Some Things About My Father, Whose Name, Wesley Howard, Does Not Have a Homonym”
Rose describes her father, who was also raised by his father but not his mother. Wesley’s father was physically abusive to him, and when he was 10 he and Weldon were taken away from their father and put into foster care. The brothers were moved around from family to family, never experiencing a permanent home. This background partially explains the backstory related in this chapter about Rose’s education. As she begins attending school, Rose’s teachers realize that she has a developmental disability and suggest that her needs might be better met at a specialized school, which would offer her resources that the small rural Hatford school can’t. Wesley, however, refuses to move Rose out of Hatford. Because of his tumultuous upbringing, Wesley wants Rose to be able to stay in Hatford, where she has spent her childhood.
Chapter 5 Summary: “When We Got Rain”
Rose tells the story of getting Rain the previous fall. Wesley is at the bar he frequents and finds her behind the bar without a collar. Deciding that the dog is a stray, he brings her home for Rose. Rose is a little unsure about how to behave with Rain at first, but she quickly comes to love and bond with the dog, who responds to her in kind.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Who I Wait For”
Rose relates the events that led to her uncle Weldon becoming responsible for dropping her off and picking her up at school every day. She used to ride the school bus but was asked to find other transportation after an unknown event that caused an issue with the other students. (The incident is related in the next chapter.) Weldon cautiously asks if he can take over driving Rose to and from school, since Wesley becomes offended and defensive if he thinks Weldon is trying to “interfere” with Rose’s upbringing. Wesley agrees to the arrangement since his own work schedule at the garage (when he has work for the day) precludes him from being able to drive Rose himself. Rose describes the engaged, caring manner with which her uncle converses with her during their rides back and forth from school.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Why I Don’t Ride the Bus”
The chapter relates backstory about Rose’s experience riding the school bus and describes the cruelty and callousness with which the other students and even the driver treat her. The students call her names and throw things at her, and the driver ignores their behavior and Rose. Rose is obsessed with monitoring the driving of the other cars on the road, which annoys the driver, and she eventually chastises the driver for breaking a driving law. After that, Rose is asked by the school not to ride the bus anymore.
Chapter 8 Summary: “In My Classroom”
Rose describes her classroom and teachers at Hatford Elementary. Ambient noises in the room bother her, making it difficult for her to concentrate, and she gets upset when the other students do not follow the rules, as when a classmate uses incorrect grammar in an essay. This behavior disrupts the other students and requires Mrs. Leibler, the aide who helps Rose, to take her out of the classroom to calm down.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Mrs. Leibler, Who Sits Next to Me”
Rose describes Mrs. Leibler’s role in her school-day routine. Mrs. Leibler accompanies her through all of her activities and is responsible for trying to facilitate Rose’s social connections with her classmates. As such, she assigns a rotating pair of Rose’s classmates to sit with her at lunch. Rose describes eating lunch with two classmates, Flo and Anders. At first, she relies on scripted conversational openers, but with some encouragement from Mrs. Leibler, she engages her classmates on the topic of pets. Her classmates are stiff around Rose at first, but eventually they loosen up. Rose is thrilled about the success of her conversation with them.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Anders Isn’t Following the Rules”
Rose becomes upset when Anders inadvertently breaks a classroom rule by not returning a game to the classroom shelf when she wants to play it. (Anders got distracted by a conversation with a classmate and didn’t mean to break the rule.) Rose angrily calls attention to the fact that he didn’t return the game, and Mrs. Leibler takes her out to the hallway to calm down.
Chapter 11 Summary: “When Rain Went to School”
The day after the incident related in Chapter 10, Weldon tells Rose to bring Rain with her when he picks her up. He has the day off work and the dog can spend the day with him. When Rose gets out of the car at the school, she doesn’t realize that Rain gets out of the truck and follows Rose to her classroom by following her scent. All Rose’s classmates are delighted and enamored with Rain, and the dog is the center of attention until Weldon comes to collect her. Rain becomes a conversation topic for Rose with her classmates that day.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Some More About Homonyms”
Rose reflects on homonyms after a conversation with her classmate, who suggests that she check a list that’s published online instead of thinking of them herself. One of Rose’s rules is that she has to think of the homonyms herself, but she’s still able to successfully converse with her classmate.
Chapter 13 Summary: “At the End of the Day”
Rose comes home from school one day and looks through a box of her mother’s things, a ritual that she repeats several times a year. She describes each item in the box, which include a necklace, a scarf, and keepsakes like the newspaper announcement of Rose’s parents’ wedding and the hospital bracelet from Rose’s birth.
The chapter ends with Rose switching on the radio and hearing an announcement about a major hurricane that is expected to make landfall in three days.
Chapters 1-13 Analysis
These early chapters introduce the story’s characters and begin to illustrate the dynamics between them. Wesley’s lack of engagement with his daughter and his unreasonable desire for her to be “normal” are apparent through the conversations he has with her and Weldon. Though Rose never explicitly blames Wesley for being a negligent and unfeeling parent, the way that he is portrayed in the story suggests that Martin intends the lack of care Rose receives to be a key source of tension in Rain Reign. Rose’s mother’s absence from her life intensifies the effect of Wesley being unable to relate to or effectively care for her. It also strengthens Wesley’s sense of being solely responsible for Rose, making Weldon cautious about trying to intervene when he feels that Rose’s needs aren’t being met. Wesley holds on to a sense of pride in raising his daughter himself, although he is either absent or irritable with Rose for much of the story.
The story arc involving Rose and her classmates also begins in this section of the book, with various interactions between them portrayed. The students who ride the school bus with Rose seem to be the worst bullies to her, throwing spitballs and addressing her with disability slurs. The bus driver doesn’t intervene as Rose is tormented and even has Rose banned from the bus for correcting her driving. Rose’s own classmates tend not to openly bully her, although Flo and Anders are portrayed as reluctant to be Rose’s “lunch buddies” at first in Chapter 9. Rose’s behavioral differences intimidate and perhaps frighten the students who don’t know her, while her closer classmates learn to converse and find common ground with Rose. Rose herself, with some practice, is able to effectively engage her classmates in conversation, as when she references Flo’s imaginary pet from a class assignment, a gesture that demonstrates her ability to successfully form social relationships.
The allusion to the hurricane at the end of this section of the book signals that it will play a central role in the next series of events. It foreshadows the storm’s disruptive role in Rose’s life as it separates her from Rain, isolates her even more with Wesley, and leads to her ultimate decision to reunite Rain with her past owners.
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