CHARACTER
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikryby Gabrielle Zevin

Maya Fikry

Maya Fikry

Quick Facts

  • Role: Adopted daughter of A. J. Fikry; emotional center of the novel
  • First appearance: Abandoned at Island Books at twenty-five months with a note and a copy of Where the Wild Things Are (p. 39–40)
  • Key relationships: Amelia Loman (adoptive mother), Chief Lambiase (godfather), Ismay Evans-Parish (godmother), Daniel Parish (biological father)
  • Appearance: A “large baby” with light brown, very curly hair, cornflower-blue eyes, tan skin “a shade or two lighter than A.J.’s” (p. 39); later, signature round red glasses (p. 91)
  • Arc in brief: From foundling to reader to writer to caregiver

Who They Are

Boldly and beautifully, Maya Fikry embodies the book’s belief in love, loss, and second chances. Left in a bookstore and raised among stories, she personifies the power of books and connection: literature doesn’t just entertain her—it shapes her identity and heals a community. Her arrival breaks A.J.’s isolation vs. connection stalemate, drawing him back into life, and her childhood creates a vibrant found family and community around Island Books. As she grows, Maya turns reading into authorship, transforming personal mystery into empathetic art.

Personality & Traits

Maya’s intelligence and warmth make her both a mirror and a remedy for the adults around her. Her curiosity pushes her toward truth; her empathy lets her imagine others’ pain without judgment. Surrounded by books, she becomes the rare reader who naturally becomes a writer—someone who notices, questions, and then renders.

  • Precocious and verbal: Her mother’s note calls her “VERY SMART, exceptionally verbal” (p. 40); she learns to read at three, recognizing “red” in Caps for Sale (p. 88), a moment that signals how text will define her life.
  • Loving and disarming: Early on, she tells A.J., “Love you” (p. 53), dissolving his defenses and establishing a relationship built on tenderness rather than obligation.
  • Inquisitive: Growing up in a bookstore, she asks and keeps asking—about people, stories, and origins—turning uncertainty into inquiry rather than fear.
  • Empathetic artist: In “A Trip to the Beach,” she imagines her mother’s last day with grace and complexity; A.J. calls it the work “written by a writer” (p. 196), identifying empathy as her artistic engine.
  • Bookish identity: From measuring spaces by Island Books’ aisles to viewing people through stories, books are her vocabulary for the world—companions, guides, and raw material for making meaning.

Character Journey

Maya’s arc moves from symbol to subject. As a toddler, she is the miracle that jolts A.J. from grief: her presence compels him to re-engage—with caretaking, then with community. Childhood in the store turns her into a node of connection, drawing in neighbors and solidifying a new family. Adolescence shifts the focus inward; given the assignment to write about someone she wishes she knew better, she confronts the silence around her parents by inventing a story that tells the truth emotionally if not biographically. By the end, she returns the love she received, caring for A.J. through his illness. The circle closes: the child the bookstore raised becomes the adult who holds the bookstore’s keeper, proving that literature’s gifts—attention, compassion, language—mature into action.

Key Relationships

  • A. J. Fikry: Maya and A.J. rescue each other—she from abandonment, he from despair. Their bond, founded on daily rituals of reading and caretaking, evolves into a partnership of minds, where A.J. becomes her first editor and deepest reader, and Maya becomes his reason to hope and, later, his comfort in dying.

  • Amelia Loman: Amelia brings color and ease into Maya’s home life: nail polish, jokes, and practical kindness. As adoptive mother, she offers gentle stability without eclipsing Maya’s curiosity about her origins, modeling how love can be chosen and consistent even when history is uncertain.

  • Chief Lambiase: As godfather, Lambiase is the steady, protective presence who widens Maya’s world beyond the store. He represents the island’s embrace—proof that community is not just a backdrop to Maya’s life but one of its sustaining forces.

  • Ismay Evans-Parish: Ismay’s role is quieter but meaningful; she is part of the web that claims Maya. Through Ismay, Maya is indirectly connected to her biological lineage, complicating—but also normalizing—the overlap between the family we’re born into and the family we build.

  • Daniel Parish: Though largely an absence, Daniel shapes the questions that drive Maya’s art. Her effort to imagine him—and, by extension, her mother—turns absence into narrative purpose, catalyzing her identity as a writer.

Defining Moments

Maya’s life is punctuated by scenes that reveal how reading, loving, and writing become the same practice: paying close attention.

  • Arrival at Island Books (p. 39–40)

    • What happens: She’s found in the children’s section with a note and a picture book.
    • Why it matters: Her arrival redirects A.J.’s life and reorients the novel toward hope, establishing Maya as the agent of renewal.

  • Learning to read (p. 88)

    • What happens: During Caps for Sale, she recognizes the word “red.”
    • Why it matters: It’s an initiation into the power of text—and the first hint that she will transform from consumer of stories to creator of them.

  • “A Trip to the Beach” (p. 190–194; 196)

    • What happens: For a school assignment, Maya imagines her birth mother’s last day; the story places in a county contest, and A.J. recognizes it as a writer’s work.
    • Why it matters: She processes loss through craft, proving that compassion and imagination can articulate truths biography can’t.

  • Caring for A.J.

    • What happens: As A.J. battles brain cancer, Maya becomes his caregiver.
    • Why it matters: The roles invert; love learned through stories becomes love enacted. The found family she helped create sustains itself through her maturity.

Essential Quotes

To the Owner of This Bookstore: This is Maya. She is twenty-five months old. She is VERY SMART, exceptionally verbal for her age, and a sweet, good girl. I want her to grow up to be a reader. I want her to grow up in a place with books and among people who care about those kinds of things. (p. 40)

This note frames Maya’s life as a deliberate bequest to literature. It also imbues the bookstore with ethical responsibility: to raise a child by cultivating attention, language, and care.

She lifts her out of the tub and then he towels her off, wiping between each perfect toe. “Luftballon,” Maya says. “Luft you.” “What?” “Love you,” she says. (p. 53)

Maya’s mispronounced love is the book’s first unguarded intimacy, cracking A.J.’s grief. The scene’s domestic tenderness shows how small rituals—baths, towels, toes—become the groundwork of family.

Maya knows that her mother left her in Island Books. But maybe that’s what happens to all children at a certain age. Some children are left in shoe stores. And some children are left in toy stores. And some children are left in sandwich shops. And your whole life is determined by what store you get left in. (p. 85)

Here, Maya reframes abandonment as origin story. The idea that “your whole life is determined by what store you get left in” captures the novel’s belief that place and community shape identity—and that being “left” in a bookstore is a kind of destiny.

“But here is what I do know. ‘A Trip to the Beach’ by Maya Tamerlane Fikry was written by a writer.” She thinks he’s about to hug her, but instead he shakes her hand, the way he would greet a colleague—perhaps an author visiting the store. (p. 196)

A.J.’s handshake recognizes Maya as an artistic equal, not just a beloved child. The gesture formalizes her transition from reader to writer, honoring the seriousness of her empathy and craft.