“‘Mrs. Leeper is nice, sort of,’ began Maggie, ‘except she didn’t make me a monitor and she put Jo Ann at a different table.’ ‘Too bad,’ said Mrs. Schultz.”

Cleary begins to develop Maggie’s relationship with her parents as well as her first impressions of her new teacher, Mrs. Leeper. This quotation also foreshadows Maggie’s later decision to become the “Message Monitor” for the class, which ultimately motivates her to learn cursive writing.

“When dinner was on the table and the family, exercised, happy, and hungry, was seated, Maggie chose the right moment to break her big news. ‘We start cursive this week,’ she said with a gusty sigh that was supposed to impress her parents with the hard work that lay ahead. Instead, they laughed. Maggie was annoyed. Cursive was serious.”

The author develops the plot of the story by describing Maggie’s annoyance with her parents, who do not realize how daunting cursive writing is for her. This quotation adds to Cleary’s exploration of parent-child relationships and Children’s Expressions of Independence, showing how Maggie seeks her parents’ understanding and rebels when she does not get it.

“‘Of course you will,’ said her father. ‘That’s why you go to school.’ This made Maggie even more contrary. ‘I’m not going to write cursive, and nobody can make me. So there.’”

Maggie’s rebellious behavior begins with her parents and soon affects her schoolwork as well. In this passage, the author shows Maggie’s stubborn side, directly characterizing her as “contrary.”