Halfway to Anywhere

To render a child’s world and perceptions in a first person narrative without being childish: that’s the challenge confronted and largely met by this opening passage.

First person narratives present severe limitations, and none more than those where the narrator is an adolescent, or, worse, a child. Not only are diction, syntax, and grammar restricted, so are the narrator’s thoughts and perceptions. And what about style? Isn’t a sophisticated or “literary” style incompatible with an immature s...