Point of View

The novel is written in third person and is mainly limited to the perspective of Genie, an 11-year-old boy who is spending a month with his grandparents. The perspective is not completely limited, but the limitations are strict enough that the reader does not know what most of the other characters are thinking at any given moment. This means that the reader generally knows Genie's motivations and thoughts on specific subjects, but the thoughts of other characters are typically hidden from the reader. The reader knows, for example, that Genie feels terrible for leaving the model truck in the floor so that Grandma steps on it. He can tell that Grandma is upset about the broken truck and that she is struggling to keep her emotions in check, but Genie's observations on the subject are the only information the reader has. The reader only knows...