Daisy Fay Harper

Daisy Fay Harper is the main character of the novel and the author of the diary in which the novel is formatted. Daisy Fay is a precocious eleven-year-old girl when the novel begins. Daisy shares with the reader the events of her life that she finds interesting, beginning with her father's desire to move the family from their home in Jackson, Mississippi to Shell Beach, Mississippi. Then Daisy shares with her diary all the things that happen to her family from the moment her mother wins the money needed to make the move until she is eighteen and ready to leave Mississippi for greener pastures.

Daisy is living in a world that is filled with stereotypes, a south where racial tension are still growing and women are expected to aspire to marriage and motherhood. Daisy stands out from this world, however, because she fights the stereotypes...