Point of View

The author writes Dear Child from Matthias, Hannah, Lena, and Jasmin's first person points of view. Over the course of the narrative, the author therefore grants her reader access to each of her primary character's most intimate thoughts and experiences. Even when Matthias, Hannah, Lena, and Jasmin are unable to express their emotions and traumas to others, they feel free to convey their truths through their private first person musings. For example, while the police are questioning Jasmin in the hospital, she realizes she does not want to tell them the entire truth. She thinks: "I have to put brackets around those things that the policemen don't absolutely need to know about. But you, Lena, you should know what he did to me" (96). Afraid of how the investigators and the press will skew her story, Jasmin attempts to seize control of her narrative through withholding...