Age is nothing but a number

Hi Everyone!

I’ve been meaning to write sooner, but this week has been quite chaotic…

…speaking of which, I have had a chance to read over some of my MOST favorite books, two of which were written by Sharon Creech: Walk Two Moons and Absolutely Normal Chaos. These are just a few of her published works, and they are written in the voices of thirteen year-old girls. They are truly incredible pieces of literature. Yes, I said incredible. The reason being is that Creech has realistically portrayed the “absolutely normal” chaotic voice of a young teenager and made it sound like it was written by said teenager, not a middle-aged woman trying to sound like a teenager. Even at the age of 23, I enjoy both of these novels over and over and over again. Walk Two Moons is in the voice of a girl name d Salamanca Tree Hiddle, and it revolves around the story she tells her grandparents while on a wild adventure with them to find her mother. It’s a heartbreaking story, really, with more than a generous sprinkling of hilarious moments. It reminds me of my own friendships, my own heartbreaks, all the questions that I ask, and how important they are to my growth. Absolutely Normal Chaos is sort of a prequel to Walk Two Moons, but not really. Mary Lou Finney is the narrator, as the book is actually written as her summer diary, but Mary Lou Finney is also a minor character in Walk Two Moons. Creech stated that she wrote Walk Two Moons with a very different outcome in mind, but eventually the story became what it is and, boy, am I glad it did: it won a Newberry Medal in 1995.

What attracts me so much to these two novels is that they give credit to young people for being, well, people. For having emotions of their own, and voices that need to be heard. In 1 Timothy 4:12 (that’s in the Bible, just in case you were wondering) Pauls writes “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity”. That’s a pretty heavy responsibility, but I don’t think children and young people are given enough credit for their wisdom. We should pay more attention to what they have to offer.

 
I have kept a journal, pretty steadily, since the age of eleven. Although much more was written in my early years, I have stacks and stacks of notebooks crammed with my adolescent thoughts and they are quite similar to Salamanca’s and Mary Lou’s. I questioned everything, but stood firm on what I believed. I was Romantic in nature and totally idealistic, even though I could see that most people were not. I had dreams and fears and love and anger and it was one hundred percent real.

This is why books like Harry Potter are so important to our culture (let’s save the religious discussions for another day): they give voice to a forgotten generation. They remind adults that it’s fun to be a child and, better yet, it’s more engaging, more exciting, more hopeful…more real. Shouldn’t we all be a bit more like that?