As a fourth grade teacher, one of my tasks is to teach my students the different narrative points-of-view authors use when writing stories. The first person point-of-view is popular among children's book authors and is easy to ascertain. Just look to see if a character in the story is telling the story and look for words such as I, me, mine, and my.

Third Person point-of-view is also widely used in children's stories. With this point-of-view, a character is not telling the story. Instead, the narrator is the author. The reader will find words such as he, she, they, and them.

One of the trickier points-of-view to teach to my students is the Second Person point-of-view. In this case, the author is speaking directly to the reader, and thus, the reader will be addressed as 'you' in the story. This point-of-view is rarely used.

So I was delighted to find as I began reading Alistair Grim's Odditorium, that the first chapter in this enjoyable book is written in the second person point-of-view (and therefore, I can use it as a teaching tool in my classroom). Here are a few example sentences from the book by Gregory Funaro:

You needn't bother trying to find the Odditorium on any map.

On the other hand, if you were too timid to ask for directions, you could just walk around until you came upon a black, roundish building that resembled a fat spider with its legs tucked up against it sides.

You'll have to take my word on that for now.

So if you ever need a good example of Second Person narrative point-of-view, or if you want to read a great children's novel, pick up a copy of ALISTAIR GRIM'S ODDITORIUM.