What has the writer done to engage you, the reader, in a relationship with the book's content?

The writer, Lee Smith, has kept me engaged with the story creating the feeling of sympathy for the heroine, Molly. Molly has lost all of her family and was living with her uncle's second wife, Selena, Selena's new baby and two daughters, and Selena's boyfriend. The boyfriend sexually assaults Molly regularly, as Molly tells us when she says "Nicky Eck came I guess he followed me and pushed me down in the straw and did things he does to me but do not worry Dear Diary for I was not really there anyway I was up in the hayloft looking down and thinking Why look at that!" The reader cannot help but feel sorry for and therefore be interested in Molly.
Smith also engages us by changing narrators a little ways into the story. Simon Black, Molly's father's friend from long ago, comes to Agate Hill and takes charge of Molly, putting her in a girls' school. He brings along a teacher from the school to be Molly's chaperone, and we read a letter she wrote to her sister the headmistress of the school about how she found Molly at Agate Hill. The chaperone, Agnes Rutherford, reveals to us things about Molly that Molly herself would not have told us. For example, Agnes found Molly to be very dirty. The house was completely unkempt with very few furnishings.
After we read Agnes's letter, the narrator shifts again to Mrs. Snow, Agnes's sister and the headmistress of the school Molly will be attending. All this narrator-switching provides a fresh perspective from which to see the story.