The Girl Who Owned a City

Todd is Lisa’s brother. He is several years younger than Lisa, and she must therefore spend a lot of time caring for and guiding Todd, who often doesn’t understand the restrictions and requirements Lisa places on him. Nevertheless, Todd works hard to help Lisa and do his best, and he ultimately serves as a valuable ally to her; he saves her life following Tom Logan’s third attack on Glenbard and then serves as a spy in order to help her retake the city. Like Lisa and the others, he is being forced to grow up much faster than he would have otherwise needed to; unlike Lisa, though, Todd still retains much of his childlike wonder and naivete, in part because he has Lisa to look out for him. 

Tom serves as the primary antagonist of the novel, though we don’t actually see much of him apart from a few choice encounters. He is the leader of the Chidester Gang, which originates from the street neighboring Grand Avenue and slowly grows over the course of the novel. Although he is violent and cruel, to some extent the novel depicts him as a victim of circumstance: someone who is unable to fend for himself and therefore resorts to violence and theft in order to survive. Early in the novel he even tries to strike a deal with Lisa and apologizes for his initial attack; he is also genuinely angry and upset when he believes that one of his soldiers has injured, and possibly killed, Lisa. Nevertheless, his approach to survival, which is based on violence and brute force, serves as a direct counterpart to Lisa’s more measured, thoughtful, and moral approach (at least insofar as she and the novel see it). Tom is ultimately defeated on these grounds—not through violence, but because Lisa convinces him that she has earned Glenbard whereas he has not. 

Craig is the other main leader of the Grand Avenue group and an important confidant to Lisa. The oldest of the neighborhood kids, Craig is particularly adept at gardening; however, his elder status makes Lisa initially put him in charge of the Grandville militia, a job he performs but vehemently dislikes. Once they move to Glenbard, Lisa instead places Craig in charge of education, but even there he is unhappy, as all he really wants to do is settle down on one of the nearby farms and work the land to support himself and his sister, Erika. As a result, Craig represents a counterpoint to Lisa’s perspective, but one that still reflects the novel’s moral code: Craig, like Lisa, wants to work hard and earn his own way, but he is not interested in rebuilding society, and he doesn’t share Lisa’s belief that they are even capable of doing so. Rather, he thinks that Lisa’s ambition invites many of the hardships that come her way, and that the only way to avoid violence and competition is not to play the game at all.