Moon is the 10-year-old protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. His parents, Oliver and Caroline, married in 1968. Moon was born in 1970, and about a year later, his parents sold their house and car and closed their accounts. They moved to a rough shelter in the middle of an uninhabited stretch of forested land in Sumter County, Alabama about six miles from the small town of Gainesville. In 1972, Moon’s mother died. Moon’s father, Pap, raised him in the forest with only infrequent hikes into Gainesville for the few supplies the forest could not offer, such as bullets, salt, and matches. As a result of his upbringing in this setting, Moon possesses many skills uncommon to a typical boy his age. He has excellent shooting skills because Pap made him practice rifle marksmanship weekly. He can start fires from scratch, hunt and butcher deer and small game, trap and fish, and tan hides. He knows how to forage from plants and trees and how to navigate by the stars. Moon learned to read and write from Pap, as he never went to school. Pap taught Moon how to fight and to be wary of attack as well.