The View from Saturday Characters

Paraplegic. Handicapped. Cripple. With words like these, no wonder it takes Mrs. Olinski 10 years to get back into the classroom.Nobody Puts Mrs. Olinski in the Corner, Except Maybe Hamilton KnappH...

Oh, Julian. Julian obviously never got the memo about sixth grade, because it's like he's begging to be ostracized. Seriously, if you looked up "Most Likely to Be a Social Pariah" in the fifth-grad...

Let's let Mrs. Olinski introduce Nadia:Had she been born five hundred years sooner, Raphael would have chosen her as a model for his cherubs. Tendrils of bright red hair framed her face, a spray of...

Like Noah and Nadia, Ethan spends part of the summer before sixth grade in Florida. Unlike Nadia and Noah, however, Ethan has his epiphany in Epiphany. (Well, you don't think Konigsburg chose the n...

Noah learns about beginnings from his grandfather's friend Tillie, who teaches him that filling a pen is not "preparation for the beginning but as the beginning itself" ("Noah".26). So, it's fittin...

Like Mrs. Olinski, Mr. Singh has secret pain in his past. He's been widowed too. And they've both settled down—Mrs. Olinski to a wheelchair, and Mr. Singh to a house in upstate New York. Yeah, th...

Mrs. Olinski almost chooses Hamilton Knapp as the fourth member of her team, even though any sixth grader could tell her what a bad idea that is. As Mr. Singh tells her, "'They [The Souls] worried,...

Margaret is Ethan's grandma and Nadia's step-grandma. She's also the former principal of Epiphany Middle School, and an old friend of Mrs. Olinski's. In fact, she gave Mrs. Olinski a lot of importa...

Izzy is Nadia's grandfather and Ethan's step-grandpa. He's a sweet guy who's gotten a second chance by marrying Margaret. Not only are they totally and embarrassingly in love (says Nadia), but they...