Top Ten Characters You’d Like To Check In With

Here’s another book-driven “top ten” list as suggested by the ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish.

(As always, in no particular order because it is hard enough to keep my lists to ten, let alone come up with a numerical order for them!)

1. Ebenezer Scrooge- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I’d love to know how well Mr. Scrooge stuck by his newly-minted resolve to be a better person. Many of us make resolutions at this start of the year, in hopes of being better than we were the year before, but oftentimes the best of intentions fall to the wayside, as it takes a lot of work to break behavioral cycles. While I have great hopes that Scrooge stuck by his better self for years to come, I would love to pop in and see it from time to time, much the way he got to pop in on scenes throughout time.

2. Narrator- “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

I’m a huge Poe fan and would love to pop in on a variety of his characters, but figured for the sake of this list I should choose just one, so I am going with the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Once he rips up the floorboards, I am sure the police arrest him, but then what? Does he plead insanity? Does he get off for the murder of the old man? Does he recover his wits or live the rest of his life listening to the incessant beating of a heart thrumming in his ears?

3. Esperanza- The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Rightly so, Esperanza is a character filled with hope. She wants to use her writing to get herself out of her rough neighborhood, creating a name and home where she is safe and has the physical and emotional space to be the author she wants to be. She’s a teenager in the book, but I would love to see her at 25, 35 and 45 and see whether she broke the cycle of poverty in which she was raised and if she now has a daughter of her own to whom she can pass along her wisdom and love of words.

4. Ponyboy- The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

This was my 3^rd quarter go-to book when I was teaching 8^th grade literacy. It was always a tough slog of a term, after the hype of the Christmas holidays and before the beautiful spring weather sets in. Ponyboy and his gang of friends was the perfect draw for all readers. Over my nearly ten years of teaching, I must have read this book cover to cover at least thirty times. So, I want to know, just like with Esperanza, did Ponyboy continue to write as a way to escape the hardships of life? Did he go to college and also create a better life for his family? (I’ve never thought about them in the same vein before, but now I am thinking Esperanza and Ponyboy might make a great couple!!)

5. Hillary Clinton- Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton

With an assumed presidential candidate announcement not too far off and the current email hubbub making headlines, I could really use an extra chapter in this book. We regularly see Clinton in the media, so it is not so much that I don’t know what this “character” is up to these days, but I would love to have some additional questions answered!

6. Female characters- The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit

I connected strongly with the female characters of this novel, who were carried along by their husbands’ jobs. New homes. New friends. Maybe a job. Maybe not. I would love to pop in a decade later and get each of their thoughts on their time at Los Alamos. Was it worth it? What did they think once they found out what their husbands had been working on during that time? Would they change anything?

7. Cady- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

This was one of the best YA books I read last year, mostly because it broke the mold of the dystopian trilogy that has taken hold within the genre. (Don’t get me wrong, I love a great dystopian book, but I’d like to see YA authors branching out a bit more.) I won’t throw in any spoiler alerts, because if you haven’t read it, you should go get a copy right now, but suffice it to say that the whole thing is a bit traumatic and I would love to know how Cady deals with the good and the bad of her situation five and ten years down the road.

8. Claire- Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman

I know this is an odd inclusion on this list, as I did not have a lot of great things to say about this book after I read it. The narrator was horribly unsympathetic and the book was painful to read. One thing that really bothered me about it was the ending and how abruptly Claire is dismissed from the narrative. I couldn’t believe Gilman wasn’t more curious about what eventually happened to her. Plus, I have my own theories about why she behaved the way she did and I would love to not only see where she is at today (and hear what she thought of the book!), but to see if I am on the right track with my guesses about the roots of her strange actions.

9. Students- Miss Nelson’s Missing! By Harry Allard

My love of reading started young, so I wanted to include a few childhood favorites on this week’s list as well. I remember loving this book as a kid, the fact that poor Miss Nelson was run off by her horrible students. The kids may have won the battle, but they lost the war, because in Miss Nelson’s place, the odious Miss Viola Swamp arrives! She kicks those kids in to gear and makes them wish they had their sweet, kind teacher back once again. It would be great fun to drop in on those kids as adults and see what they remember about the great-teacher-switch and if they ever had an inkling what was really going on. Plus, they probably all have children on their own now and I want to see if they ended up with angels or hellions. (I am sure at least one became a teacher too, so, how did that work out?!)

10. Ramona Quimby- Ramona, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary

There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, Ramona Quimby is awesome! I feel like she and I had a lot in common growing up, as I too was the “annoying” little sister. I always pictured us as about the same age, so I would love to see where she ended up now that she would be in her 30s. Does she have a family? What does she do for a living? Is she close with Beezus now?

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