The Not Children

There is a factual quality to the writing that is similar to a Dick and Jane story. Short factual sentences mix with poetic phrases and observations of the world. The voices of the characters are children and yet not children. They describe everything that happens, even emotions that they feel, but they do it in odd ways (“A caterpillar is curled in a green ring,” said Susan, “notched with blunt feet.” / “Jinny’s eyes break into a thousand lights.” / “But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher with words and words in phrases.”) The voices are a mix of childish naivety and poetic wisdom. The structure is honest, like a child, and imaginative, like a child, but the ideas behind what is being said seems to concern things that children should not register. In a way it reminds me of Dr. Seuss. When you read them as a child the stories mean one thing, but as you get older and read them again you see a deeper side to your childhood books that you didn’t pick up on before. I don’t see this novel as meant for children, but I think it captures that reveal in the characters themselves rather than the reader experiencing the newfound depth personally. We see them discovering their world in way that seems deeper than perhaps they realize. It is hard to pin an age on them and as we learn more about them the older they seem be, almost as if they are aging in the sentences.