Point of View

The novel is told from the third person point of view of three young adults - Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud in that order. The story is broken into different perspectives from each of them and moves forward in time from the start of each of their stories. Gratz tells the reader which point of view he is telling by writing the heading of each new perspective the child’s name at the beginning.

Gratz uses this style of point of view to show the unique perspective of each character while also demonstrating that no matter which country or time period the character hails from, their experience is similar. Gratz tells the novel from the third person perspective to show the other voices and perspectives in the story, and to show a more objective analysis of the situation. Since war situations can so often be dismissed...