The View from Saturday Theme of Choices

What kind of person do I want to be? Who should I make friends with? And what should I have for lunch? Just like the kids in The View from Saturday, we make important choices every day. What's cool about the book is its insistence that we don't always know why we make the choices we do—and that we're not the only ones making the choices. The answer, after all, is "Yes!"

1. How does Mrs. Olinski select the members of her team? What reasons does she give for her choice?
   
2. What kind of choices do all four of The Souls make? What's different or similar about them?
3. Why does it matter that Mrs. Olinski chooses her team rather than holds a competition? Why does The View from Saturday seem to think it's so important to choose?

A View from Saturday suggests that the reason for Mrs. Olinski's selection of these four is less important than the fact that she made a selection in the first place.

According to Konigsburg, "choice" is really just an illusion.