Discipline. Focus. If preparing for the Academic Bowl required The Souls to drink raw eggs, you know they'd be doing it. All four of the kids from The View from Saturday have tremendous willpower: Noah never stops arguing for his side of the story, Nadia asserts herself until even her anxious father listens, Ethan saves money for the day that he tells his family he wants to run away to New York, and Julian—well, Julian is just awesome.
Questions About Perseverance
- Which characters in The View from Saturday lack perseverance? Which ones have it?
- How does the Academic Bowl competition reward perseverance? Is it a different sort of perseverance than the kind required by sports competitions?
- Does anything in the book come easily to the characters? If so, what?
Chew on This
The View from Saturday shows that natural talent is no substitute for perseverance.
All the skills discussed in the book—Julian's magic, Noah's calligraphy, Ethan's secret money stash, and Nadia's dog training—require persistence and patience. Acquiring these skills makes the foursome suited to win the Academic Bowl.