Un-required Category for "Moustraps"

       The book Mousetraps is in first person point of view. I think that first person point of view was chosen so you could get the full affect of what Maxie was going through in some of the situations she encountered. If this book wouldn’t have been in first person point of view, it would have made the book a lot different. For example; if this book were written from Sean or Dexter’s point of view, we wouldn’t have known details about the scene when Maxie goes to visit Rick at the motel he is staying at. This scene is important to the book because Rick tells about his bad decisions that he made leading to his beating. If the book would’ve been written from Rick’s point of view, the climax may have been given away because we would’ve already known what had happened. This would make the story less exciting already knowing what Rick was planning on saying to Maxie. Some scenes may have still been just as interesting, but possibly not. One example of this is again when Maxie goes looking for Rick at the motel. Instead of being glued to the book dying to know what was going to happen next, you would’ve already known about Rick’s story and why he was at the hotel. The full impact wouldn’t have been the same, and there would not really be a climax in the story. Another good example of telling this story from the first person point of view is when Maxie and Rick are started to drift apart from being friends in the sixth grade. Maxie was bothered because people were teasing them. Other students thought of them as a couple and it wasn’t true. I think Rick mainly didn’t care because he had always been an outcast in his life and didn’t mind the teasing nearly as much as Maxie did. Rick just wanted a friend that he could always rely on. Maxie realized the teasing was starting to affect her life and slowly but surely drifted from Rick. Sadly, Rick didn’t realize that their friendship was drifting apart. He believed that he would never lose Maxie as a friend. If this story were told from Rick’s point of view, we wouldn’t have understood how Maxie felt about being teased. I think the author obviously made a good choice in making Maxie the main character and making the book in first person point of view.

Required Category for "Mousetraps"

       The main character of the book Mousetraps is Maxie. Maxie is a teenage girl in high school. She has short brown hair and is an average sized human being. She is a very artistic girl; she looks at the world through her very detailed and creative drawings. She is very nice, artistic, friendly and intelligent girl who is just doing her best to fit in, in high school. One of her goals is to be a successful artist when she grows up. She doesn’t want to be a serious artist; she would rather be a creative artist who draws more random drawings that mean different things to different people. Her reactions to things can be a little exaggerated but she takes everything that needs to be taken seriously, seriously. The other main character in the book is Rick. Maxie and Rick are very creative when working together. An example is in sixth grade they had their own fake company named Hawke & Nash Inc. Their little company was for making detailed drawings of mouse traps. Rick Nash would make the designs and Maxie Hawke would draw them. I would say that Maxie is usually self assured. She doesn’t always express it but a lot of the times she is confident in what she does and knows that her decision, good or bad, is hers and she will have to take care of it afterwards no matter what the results. An example of Maxie being self assured is when she has to help her friend Rick after he has been beaten by his dad and won’t talk to anyone. Maxie is sure that she has to help Rick by talking to him and trying to get him to come back to school. Rick is an emotional wreck and so Maxie brings along one of her friends, Dexter and one of her cousins, Sean for back up. I think Maxie can be admirable but not always. An example of Maxie being admirable is when she tries to rebuild her friendship with Rick. She drew him a mouse trap and put a little note on it. Rick admired this very much and thought it was very creative and a very nice thing to do. I think what makes Maxie different from other characters is that she always does her best to include everyone and she knows how to be a good friend.