From: Bokelman, Todd and Maggie <toddandmaggie>
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 08:37:38 -0400

To reintroduce myself briefly, since I've been silent for some time, I'm a stay-at-home mom with a library degree (and a former student of Eliza Dresang, whose comments I've really appreciated).

I agree with what many of you have been saying, that the characters are the heart of the Tillerman series. Dicey, Jeff, Mina, et al., are not types, nor are they easy to categorize. They seem remarkably real. The multi-layered perspective of the series as a whole certainly enlarges this sense of reality, but even within each individual book--at least in the three I have read--Voigt displays an unusual talent for creating living, breathing people (honestly, I think of them as "people," not "characters.") I think it takes a good deal of effort on the reader's part to get to know Voigt's "people." which may in part explain why some readers find the books
(especially those without compelling plots) hard to "get into." The Tillermans and their friends are many?ceted (like real people); they often behave in contradictory ways (like real people); and they are not static
(like real people). But the effort to get to know them is well worth it--just as the effort it takes to get to a know a real person usually is.

Maggie Bokelman toddandmaggie at msn.com
Received on Tue 18 May 1999 07:37:38 AM CDT