Point of View

The point of view of the novel is essential to its creation of character and its central theme of respect for the natural world. As the narrator, Kester filters his entire world through his language for the reader to access. A young boy with a huge heart and an even bigger sense of humor, Kester never takes himself too seriously, but he always treats the lives and safety of his friends with the utmost solemnity. Because all of Kester’s friends just so happen to be animals—and “useless” animals such as cockroaches and pigeons—his respect for them and his determination to treat them with dignity, to protect them, and to risk his own life to save them filters into the core of the novel and makes the reader reevaluate his/her own treatment of all the little animals and insects in our real...