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Changing Point of View
Read your children a book with several characters. Have the 
children select a particularly interesting or exciting incident. Ask them to write a letter or journal 
entry describing the incident from the viewpoints of at least two characters. You might first 
want to read them
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
(Scieszka) and
The Pain and the Great One
(Blume) to show how different points of view can change stories dramatically.
Setting 
Setting 
Setting is where and when the story takes place . Every story occurs in some time 
period at some geographical location(s). Setting can include topography, climate, 
and weather when these are integral to the story. Setting “may play a significant role 
that has an impact on every other aspect of the book, it may be inconsequential and 
barely mentioned, or it may not be mentioned at all” (Brown & Stephens, 2007,
p. 175 ). Setting can be a realistic time and place that the reader recognizes, such as the 
New Jersey suburb in Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret . Settings can 
also be quite abstract, perhaps in an imaginary world with a time period that does not 
correspond to earth time, as in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Lewis). The 
story could cover a time span of only one day, as in Finding Buck McHenry (Slote), 
or it could span decades, as in The Rifle (Paulsen). When the title of a book includes 
its setting, expect the setting to be a major element of the story, as in Little House on 
the Prairie (Wilder). In addition, the setting serves a major function in survival stories, 
in which the conflict is person against nature, as in Hatchet (Paulsen). 
Setting is more important in some stories than others; therefore, there are two 
types of settings—backdrop and integral. The backdrop setting is relatively unim-
portant to the story. The name is derived from traditional theater where flat, non-
descript painted scenery was dropped from the ceiling at the back of the stage. This 
is the type of setting often found in traditional literature that begins with a literal or 
implied “once upon a time.” Traditional literature is nearly always set in an indeter-
minate past time and in an unspecified place, such as a queen’s castle, a peasant’s hut, 
a dark forest, or a barnyard. It is not surprising that fantasy, which has its origins 
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