Childhood Favorite: The Story Girl

When I was a kid, I believed everything people told me. I wasn't stupid, just green. And while I would be terrified for days that Something Bad was going to happen, I was always a little ... disappointed when I found out the truth. That's the trade-off: relief that I wasn't actually going to die, etc., for a loss of innocence, wonder, and naivete.

The Story Girl follows a group of kids with childhoods similar to mine. Their imaginations often get the better of them, with predictably hilarious results. It's odd, reading this book as an adult, because I can recognize their follies and see where their own special logic has tripped them up; I think when I was younger, I easily identified with the characters and was more caught up in their emotional struggles.

As an adult, I read the book with more nostalgia than sympathy. But it evokes memories of my own childhood antics, and it makes me wish, for a second, that I was still that green little girl with the powerful imagination.

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