David Greenberg

    David is the main character and the protagonist of How to Survive Middle School. He undergoes the pressures of his new school, Harman Middle, and also wants to grow up to be the host of the Daily Show, like his idol Jon Stewart. In the mean time, though, David creates his own TalkTime videos on YouTube, assisted by his spunky hamster Hammy. David has an older sister named Lindsay, and they get along pretty well. The only time they didn't get along was when David started posting pictures of Lindsay's acne covered face along with his videos on the internet. David is a very intelligent young boy, and is even in the advanced math class along with only one other sixth grader, Sophie, to prove it.

Sophie Meyers

     Sophie is a supporting protagonist.She is the curly red-haired pepperminty-smelling new girl at Harman Middle School. By new, I mean that she was previously homeschooled, and is doing her very best to fit in with the other children. She is a very bright sixth grader, and attends the advanced math class with David. Sophie has made lots of friends at Harman, but her greatest friend is David Greenberg. Sophie does not often bring peers to her house though, for she is embarassed by her overly-protective mother. Sophie is tired of her mom always trying too hard to help her make and keep friends when they do come over, because Sophie doesn't see it as helping. Sophie is a very talented girl when it comes to school and school work, time-management, and attempting at playing the tuba.

Hammy

    Hammy is a supporting protagonist and David Greenberg's pet hamster. He is, in many ways, more valuable than your every day hamster. Hammy helps David make his videos more enjoyable by adding some humor to them. If you look on my home page, you will see one of the videos that I added that was created for the book. It is mentioned in the book as the Hammy Time video,  where Hammy is present as the star of a remake, to the tune of U Can't Touch This by MC Hammer. Hammy is also very special to David, because he was bought by David's mom, and given to him as a gift before she left them.

Mrs. Greenberg

    Mrs. Greenberg was a fun-loving woman, at least as David remembered her. She is a supporting protagonist in this novel. She used to frequently play the tuba, and whenever David or Lindsay needed help with something, or were in a bit of a predicament, she used to always be there to help them out. Used to. Now David and Lindsay never catch so much as a phone call from their mom. Why? Well, for one thing, Mrs. Greenberg needed to "find herself", and felt that she was being suffocated in their house. She had some srange kind of phobia that made it hard for her to leave the house, and the rest of the Greenberg family is astonished that she was even able to do this. What did she do? Mrs. Greenberg had had enough, and got in the car with a farmer from Maine named Marcus to go live with him on his organic beet farm.

Mr. Greenberg

    Mr. Alan Greenberg is a supporting protagonist, and caring father to Lindsay and David. He is also a supporting protogonist in this story. He tries his hardest to make his children ecstatic, and feels that he has to be the role of their mom, too, now that she is gone. Mr. Greenberg likes giving advice to people that need assistance in decision making, and even has an article in the newspaper every week called, "Alan's Answers." That is where people e-mail him their problems, and he posts some of his solutions to them in the paper. That isn't Mr. Greenberg's only talent, though. He is also in a band with his friends from college.

Lindsay Greenberg

    Lindsay is a supporting protogonist, and Davids' affectionate and understanding sister. She is always there for David, and gets along with him much better than most siblings do. Lindsay has already graduated from Harman, and is currently in high school. So whenever David has a question about middle school, she always listens to him carefully and gives honest, truthful responses. Lindsay is also has an insecure side though, and is often seen around the house wearing "acne-be-gone" cream, as referred to by David.

Bubbe

    Bubbe is a supporting protogonist in this novel, and David and Lindsay's loving yiddish grandmother. She takes care of them like their mom would, and comforts her grandchildren the best that she can. She supports all of David's videos, and even watched and commented on them before they went viral. There is only one stubborn side of Bubbe. That is that she doesn't want David or Lindsay to lose sight of their yiddish culture, so she will often drops yiddish words into casual conversation.

Elliott

    Elliott is David's best friend for part of the story. He is both a supporting protagonist and a supporting antagonist. In the beginning, he and David are best friends, and it looks loki it would be extremely difficult and would take lots of effort to get the away from each other. Later in the book, though, Elliott looks a lot like a traitor. He befriends the person that he and David have seen as their enemy for years. Elliott starts to tease and make fun of David, and gradually moves further back into the dark side. Fortunately for Elliott and David, Elliott decides to come back to his senses at the end of the book, and he and David become best friends again.

Tommy Murphy

    Tommy Murphy is the antagonist and bully in this novel. He is the careless, ruthless child that once split a kid's head open by throwing a rock at him. When Elliott tells him that he wants to be his friend, Tommy is shocked, but takes Elliott under his wing so that they can unite and together make fun of David. Tommy is the one that came up with the name that is often used by the people that don't like David, which is, "Lameberg," instead of, "Greenberg." He has done some other horrible things, too, such as he tripped David at lunch, and it was like a dominoe effect until teachers fell. He gave David a swirlie, which is when you stick someone's head in the toilet and you make them sing, "Happy Birthday." In my eyes, the worst thing that Tommy did was to steal Elliott from David, though. He is one of those children that never learns from his mistakes that went awry, and he probably spends more time in detention than at home.