Point of View

The story is told from fourteen-year-old Mary Call Luther's perspective. As the reader experiences the story through her eyes, they can see the hardships that befall her family with both compassion and with pride. Mary Call is a tough girl, and she does not dwell on sweetness or beauty, but on the practical necessities of life and the important qualities of pride, freedom, and intelligence. Even as a first-person narrator, Mary Call rarely admits when she is frightened, hurt, or crying, but she reveals these emotions as others see them in her, such as when her brother asks her why her eyes are so big after the fox attack, or when Kiser asks her why she is bawling in the hospital. Mary Call does not communicate these things to the reader, because Mary Call believes she is too strong for these emotions. The only way to...