Points of View

A fictitious thirteen-year-old girl tells the story through her point of view. This point of view allows the reader to get inside her emotions and reactions to the things that she reports. For example, the reader learns about her deceased mother and grandfather through events that remind her of them. This first-person account of the story provides an avenue for the author to hook the reader. The reader becomes a friend to the characters because of all the emotion that the characters share with the reader. The story would not be as touching or memorable had the author chosen to use a third-person narrator.

Setting

The story takes place in New England, near the small towns of North Haversham and Cookshire and the larger cities of Boston and Montpelier. Cookshire, south of North Haversham, is the site of the nuclear plant and the nuclear accident that...