Jeanette, Craig, and Scout are all outcasts of their societies. They all stand out or disappear in the masses in some extra ordinary way. Jeanette is a lesbian, Craig is simply more sensitive thatn others to all of his surroundings, and Scout is not a lady.
In Oranges this situation is made clear through Winterson's Humpty Dumpty analogy.
In Blankets Thompson shows Craig's uniqueness from the rest of the world with the "Allegory of the Cave" parallelism.
To Kill a Mockingbird adds Scout's aunt to the novel to clearly express how Scout is not growing up as she is expected to by the community.
All three of these characters struggle to belong to some larger community, while not giving up their personal values.

On a personal note, I feel that I had a similar struggle when I moved to Manistee. Although I had lived in California the year before I felt that that year was more to experience something different. I didn't quite care to belong to anything in particular. However, when I moved to Michigan things changed a little. Knowing that Michigan was going to be my permanent residence I hoped to find a group that would easily and readily include me. I felt this was going to be easy, but it wasn't as easy as it was in 3rd grade. At times it was a struggle for me to keep my ideals and
transfer them into a new setting in order to get accepted. Some of my ideas about life or how to live life changed due to my change of environment. I guess I've had to adapt a little.