Point of View

The novel is written in a third-person limited style, told from Jesse's perspective. Jesse is growing up, and the reader sees the process of maturing through his eyes. The reader also sees all of Jesse's experiences through his point of view and understands how Jesse interprets events. As a ten-year-old boy, Jesse's priorities are how his peers think of him, what his peers value, ideas of self-image, being accepted by others, and matters of fairness. Interspersed throughout are flashes of childhood fantasy and wishful thinking.

Jesse sees adults as being distant and unfathomable. He does not have a sense of his parents, nor his teacher, existing outside of the context in which he knows them. When Mrs. Myers tells Jesse about her dead husband, he finds it difficult to imagine her as loving wife mourning a lost husband. In his mind, she is always just been...