Point of View

Seth Michelin is the narrator of this story, and as a result the events that readers see are filtered through the mind of this eleven-year-old boy. For the most part, this is what makes the story interesting. He comes from a Haitian family and lives in the working-class section of a big city during the 1990s, and this is a perspective that is not often shown in books. Readers find that their expectations about the types of people who live in Seth's world are overturned by reading this story. Not only does Mrs. Fabiyi, the strange old lady, turn out to actually be nice, which is a standard turn of events in many children's stories, but Seth and Samona breaks stereotypes with characters like Anthony, a former gang member who had gone on to college; Reggie, a current gang member who is learning to read and...