Point of View

Being a collection of short stories, Jump and Other Stories contains a variety of points of view, but unlike most traditional stories, each story is not necessarily restricted to a single point of view. Many times, a story begins with one narrative perspective and during the tale switches to another.

The first time this occurs in the book is in the story "Once Upon a Time". The tale begins with a first person narrator who is also a well-known author describing a recent invitation to submit a selection to a collection of children's stories. The narrator does not write children's stories and at first thinks nothing about it. Later, the point of view switches to third person, and for the remainder of the tale, the third person narrator tells a chilling parable.

This pattern of beginning in first person and then switching to third person occurs...