The fifth and sixth graders file down the stairs and into the school library, like they've done hundreds of times before. They're the big kids at Beeman Elementary , and library time isn't just about read-alouds and checking out books anymore. Librarian Nancy Custer Carroll has a lesson for them on characters in Laura Marx Fitzgerald 's book Under the Egg . Theo is the girl at the center of the story. Her grandfather has died, and now it’s up to her to feed the chickens, tend the garden, make