74 pages • 2 hours read
Raina TelgemeierSmile: A Graphic Novel
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2010A 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.
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 Summary
Raina’s braces fail to pull down her front teeth as intended—they are now fused to her jawbone. Dr. Dragoni proposes extracting the teeth over winter break and replacing them with a temporary retainer. He will then use a full set of braces to move the remaining top teeth together over several years. Raina switches between despair and hope during this explanation until she cries on her mother’s shoulder. The news negatively affects her performance at school.
Melissa and Karin learn about Raina’s relationship with Sammy and tease her for being with “a tiny-tot sixth grader” (83), but she does not care. Meanwhile, Emily suggests that she watch The Little Mermaid in theaters, which destroys her expectations and makes her want to become an animator (or a mermaid). She then develops a crush on a transfer student, Sean, after he briefly mentions liking it as well.
After Dr. Dragoni removes her braces, Raina cannot enjoy her winter break as she runs into reminders of her upcoming surgery such as half-bitten apple ornaments and Grandma Gagnon’s peanut brittle. She undergoes the extraction surgery at Dr. Golden’s office just before Christmas. While under anesthesia, she relives a childhood memory in which she loses a baby tooth in a bounce house accident. Raina worries if the missing tooth will prevent the tooth fairy from visiting her, so her parents encourage her to create a paper tooth. When she discovers the tooth fairy’s card the next day, Raina realizes she has the same handwriting as her father. After surgery, a groggy Raina sees her missing teeth in the mirror and wishes for her front teeth back as a Christmas gift.
Dr. Dragoni presents his patient with a retainer a few days later with instructions to soak it nightly with denture cleaner. Raina is overjoyed with it and tries to eat corn with it still on that night. Her friends compliment the realism of the teeth, but then Kelli and Karin reveal that they both have retainers as well except with fancier designs. Karin even has a picture of Joe McIntyre from the boy band New Kids on the Block on hers.
Chapter 4 Analysis
Raina’s journey hits a new emotional low when she learns that extreme measures are necessary to correct her teeth. Telgemeier depicts the meeting in which Dr. Dragoni explains the procedure and pantomimes the braces forcing the front teeth together. Raina’s face and body language reflect her fear as she hides her face behind her hands, peeks out of them, and sobs. Her mother sees the positives of the solution but remains supportive of her daughter.
Before The Little Mermaid, most of the Disney movies Raina would have encountered were either decades-old fairytales or animal comedies for kids. The 1989 movie sparked a revival in popularity and critical acclaim for the studio and was tailor-made for the budding artist. Like her, Ariel the mermaid is a teenager who yearns for independence and romantic love, but her physical condition keeps her from meeting the perfect man she sees on the surface. Telgemeier depicts how her younger self first approaches the movie with cynicism before curling up in her chair with joy in a large panel.
The movie also changes Raina’s romantic desires. Despite gushing over Sammy at the beginning of the chapter, she switches focus to Sean based on one comment. Whereas she falls for Sammy because of a shared circumstance, Raina sees Sean like a Disney prince with whom she can transform a stray connection into something greater.
While under anesthesia for the extraction surgery, Raina experiences a flashback with sepia-toned pages. The events mirror her current situation: losing her front tooth while having fun, failing to find it, and making a replacement tooth. Although she only lost a baby tooth in the flashback, the accident could have damaged her mouth in a way that made her permanent front teeth more vulnerable to falls like the one she suffered. Raina’s focus on satisfying the tooth fairy only to realize it does not exist reflects her frustration with the moving goalposts of her recovery.
Raina’s self-esteem gets a boost with her new retainer, but even that fails to improve her position with her friends as two of them reveal that they have fancier retainers. One of them is Karin, and the fact that she wears a retainer makes her later teasing hypocritical. As this sub-conflict festers, neither a boyfriend nor a perfect smile will improve Raina’s standing with this group.
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By Raina Telgemeier
