Rain Man

Penguin Readers, 1994. — 42 pages. When Charlie Babbitt’s father dies, he is sure he will get all the rich man’s money. But Charlie is wrong. The money has gone to someone else - someone nobody has ever told him about: his brother. Raymond Babbitt is not like other people. He cannot live in the real world. When Charlie meets him in the home where he has lived for many years, he knows it is Raymond’s doctor he must fight to get the money. But Raymond is someone special, and the brothers’ meeting is the beginning of an adventure that will change them both . . . The film Rain Man came out in 1988. The idea came from a story by American writer Barry Morrow. Tom Cruise played Charlie Babbitt and Dustin Hoffman played Raymond. Hoffman tried to learn as much as possible about people like Raymond before he made the film. He talked to a lot of doctors, and met between thirty and forty people who had the same ‘problem’ as Raymond: they lived their lives inside themselves and it was very hard for them to talk to people. The film made $110 million in its first year, in the United States alone, and won four Oscars. Leonore Fleischer wrote the book from the film, and from Barry Morrow’s story, in 1989.