Point of View By: Gabby

Point of View is the perspective from which a narrative is told. In Example: First Person, Third person limited, and third person omniscient.

In If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson, point of view is noticed widely throughout the chapters. Point of view is the perspective from which a narrative is told. For Example, three of the different views are first person, third person limited, and third person omniscient. The chapters are organized in which every other chapter is told from either Jeremiah's or Ellie's point of view. When it is in Ellie's point of view, it is in first person, but when it is Jeremiahs point of view it is in third person. An example of Ellie's point of view is "I pulled a strand of hair into my mouth and chewed on it for a moment. Maybe one day me an Jeremiah would have a commitment ceremony. What vows would I make - that if we ever met for the first time in the hallway again. I'd remember to tell him my name?" , which could be found on page 53 of chapter 4. An example of Jeremiahs point of view is " Jeremiah lifted his sweatshirt over his head and jogged out onto the floor slapping Joe's hand as they passed each other. He wasn't the tallest guy on the team, but in the week of practice, he had realized that he was easily the fastest and best shot." Keywords to notice the first person view was "I" or "My". Keywords to notice the third person view was "He", "Him", "His", or "They".

Discussion Questions
1. How would you tell if a chapter in a book is a certain point of view? Explain.
2. Why do you think the author played around with different point of views? What did it do to make the book more interesting or bad?