A Thousand Never Evers

Twelve-year-old Addie Ann is the protagonist of A Thousand Never Evers. She is intelligent, with a passion for geography and a desire to become a “television geography teacher” (19). She has just graduated from elementary school at the start of the text and is excited yet nervous about the idea of going to middle school in the fall. Although her father died before she was born, she has a good idea of who he was through stories told by Mama and her brother, Elias, and learns in the novel that he was killed for his resistance to injustice. She is raised in his place by her father’s brother, Uncle Bump.

At the start of the text, Addie Ann’s immaturity is clear; however, throughout the text, she grows, eventually recognizing the importance of standing with her community against prejudice. She often identifies prejudice in her life but does so initially in a matter-of-fact way, with thoughts that that is just how things are and with little idea that they can be changed. For example, as she crosses the tracks to where the white people live in town, she notes how “everything seems white and bright [with] fresh-painted shingles and white picket fences glean in the late-afternoon sun” (3).