Characters in children's books can help to guide readers through stories, contributing to deepened understandings of plot and themes. The authors discuss why characters become vivid and lasting in readers' minds, the ways in which students are often asked to think about characters in classroom literature study, and how students' understanding of characters develops as they develop as readers. In addition, the authors contend that teachers can provide instructional support to nurture deeper insights on character--and ultimately on the entire text. To illustrate, the authors describe how one first-grade teacher supported her students' literary meaning making as they followed dynamic characters through a complex text. The teacher's strategies included helping children to identify and collect character traits, introducing realia to increase understanding of the story world, allowing students to reenact critical story events, helping children thread meanings across chapters, and inviting personal responses through journal writing. Through these strategies, children were able to use the characters as guides to meaning. The authors include a list of character-rich books for classroom discussion. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)