Identifying Narrative Point of View

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had had a happy life. He lived peacefully with his mother and father in a beautiful house beside the sea. There were always plenty of other children for him to play with,and there was a sandy beach for him to run about on.

• Thirds person limited

• Third person omniscient

• First person

The Witches, by Roald Dahl

I looked around and I saw a hideous painted and powdered witch's face staring down at me, and the face opened its mouth and yelled triumphantly, "It's here! It's behind the screen! Come and get it!" The witch reached out a gloved hand and grabbed me by the hair, but I twisted free and jumped away.

• First person point of view

• Third person limited point of view

• Third person omniscient point of view

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, by Roald Dahl

When Mr. Wonka had finished reading the recipe, he carefully folded the paper and put it back into his pocket. "A very, very complicated mixture," he said. "So ca you wonder it took me so long to get it just right?" He held the bottle up high and gave it a little shake and the pills rattled loudly inside it, like glass beads.

• First person point of view

• Thrid person limited point of view

• Third person omniscient point of view

Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar

Leslie sat in front of Paul. She had two long brown pigtails that reached all the way down to her waist. Paul saw those pigtails, and a terrible urge came over him. He wannted to pull a pigtail. He wanted to wrap a fist around it, feel the hair between his fingers, and just yank. He thought it would be fun to tie the pigtails togther, or better yet, tie them to her chair. But most of all, he just wanted to pull one.

• First person point of view

• Third person limited point of view

• Third person omniscient point of view

Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbit

At dawn, Mae Tuck set out on her horse for the wood at the edge of the village Treegap. She was going there, as she did once every ten years, to meet her two sons, Miles and Jesse, and she was feeling at ease. At noon time, Winnie Foster, whose family owned the Treegap wood, lost her patience at last and decided to think about running away.

• First person point of view

• Third person limited

• Third person omniscient

Invitation to the Game, by Monica Hughes

And we scrounged. Next to survival, scrounge was probably the most important word in our new vocabulary. We found a store that was throwing out water damaged matresses. Getting them home was a problem, since we had to make two trips, leaving Brad and Katie, armed with sticks to guard over what remained, I truly expected them to be challenged by some gang boss, but they said that the only person who came by was a scrawny little rat of a girl living alone. We let her have one of the matresses.

• First person point of view

• Thrid person limited point of view

• Thrid person omniscient point of view

The Ninja Housewaife, by Deborah Hanlin

After dropping her son off from school, Sara sat in a traffic light and waited. She was on her way to an office job as a secretary in a law office. It was mainly paperwork with very little time to interact with other people, but Sara had gotten used to that. It also gave her plenty of time to daydream, something she had also gotten quite used to. She was a woman in her mid-thirties, married 13 years, with one child.

By writing this in thrid person limited point of view, which character's thoughts are revealed?

• Deborah's

• Sara's

• Sara's son

• the narrator's

The Twits, by Roald Dahl

As soon as Mrs. Twit sat down, Mr. Twit pointed at her and shouted, "There you are! You're sitting in your old chair and you've shrunk so much your feet aren't even touching the ground!" Mrs. Twit looked down at her feet and by golly the man was right. Her feet were not touching the ground.

Because this passage is in third person limited point of view...

• The reader can get into the mind of one of the characters.

• The reader sees the thoughts and feeling of multiple characters