Dicey's Song Characters

Back Off, She’s HardcoreIf you’re looking for a YA heroine who breaks the mold, Dicey might as well go around smashing things with a hammer. She’s a 13-year-old girl who spent the summer lead...

Crazy Like a FoxGram’s a crazy old bat, but she’s also pretty awesome. Although she’d never tell the Tillerman kids, she’s happy to have a second chance at raising a family, given that her...

Let’s just put on our big boy pants and tell it like it is: Dicey’s mom spends the entire book catatonic, and then she dies. Her story isn’t exactly action-packed, as she never interacts with...

James is that kid who sits in the back of the class, but always has the right answers. He's a little boy genius, but he's got a bit of a bug about it, so he tries to fly under the radar. In fact, h...

Dicey’s younger sister Maybeth is not your average student. She struggles to understand math and reading, but somehow excels—and we mean excels—at the piano. She's a straight up prodigy. And...

Dicey’s youngest sibling, Sammy, is known for fighting. Or at least he was. Once he gets to Crisfield, he tries to be a perfect student because he feels guilty for letting Momma down with his beh...

Think of Mr. Lingerle as the guinea pig for the Tillermans' experiments in reaching out. A lonely, obese music teacher, he gives Maybeth piano lessons and becomes an honorary member of the Tillerma...

Jeff's a 10th-grade guitar-playing boy who serenades Dicey every day after school and invites her to the school dance. But wait, we’ve got to back up here for a minute. You don’t just dive righ...

Mina's a popular, outspoken African-American girl who’s in Dicey’s grade at school. She works hard to be Dicey’s friend, despite the fact that Dicey is white. As Mina’s popular black friend...

Millie TydingsShe's the longtime owner of the local grocery store and Dicey’s boss. She’s a parallel to Maybeth for Dicey, since she, like Maybeth, struggles with reading. Millie has known Gram...