Bloggers are getting younger these days

Soon after I started this blog, and flushed with the excitement of writing, I began to wonder if I could write a book about moving to America. In fact, I gave up the blog (or tried to) for a while, with that in mind. I have to confess I didn’t get very far (and I missed the blog too much to leave it). Let’s be honest, I didn’t actually start. I did talk about it though, and 11-yo liked the idea. He offered to co-write the book with me, and that gave me another idea. Perhaps we could produce a book about the move, written from both perspectives. The mature, wise, reflective story of the adult, interspersed by the fresh, immediate, youthful comments of the child. I thought a publisher might like that.

There’s just one glitch. I’ve not written any of my sections. 11-yo has rather put me to shame. He's written 5,500 words, although he's only got as far as the point at which we arrive in our new city and are met at the airport. We both have some way to go.

I can’t tell you how interesting it has been for me to read his account of events, and to get insights into what it was like for him to be a player in them. I thought you would like to read his work too, so here are the first 500 words or so. I removed real names, and made one factual interjection, but otherwise it is completely unedited. I hope you enjoy the read.

Our family moved overseas from Scotland to America, and I am here to tell you about it.

It all started when I was in primary 4. I got home from school, did the usual things I would do on a Friday afternoon after school, and mum and dad called 5-yo and 2-yo and me into the dining room. 2-yo and 5-yo are my brother and sister. Mum and dad sat us all round our circular table, and told us that we were going to move from our house in Scotland near the sea, all the way over to America, almost as far away from the sea as you can possibly get. It was shocking news at the time to all of us, but also, it was exciting as you could imagine. 5-yo and 2-yo then started asking question after question to mum and dad, some of them unanswerable, but some of them where good questions. They were questions like, “How big is the city?” Or “When are we going?” Those types of questions. So, we had a little chat, and then went back to doing Friday afternoon things, and mum went off to make dinner.

The weekend after we heard the news passed very slowly, because I was very excited about telling everyone about us moving across seas. Of course, at the time, it seemed like a very long time till it actuarially moved, which at the time, was true. It was at least a year and a quarter, if not longer. [It was 6 months. Ed.] So, the weekend slowly went by, doing weekend jobs, watching a bit of TV, and shopping for food, and weekend jobs. Finally, it got to Sunday though, and in the morning we went to church. The Sunday afternoon went by slower that Saturday though.

Finally, after the whole weekend, a whole 48 hours, Monday came. I had never been so excited to go to school in my whole life, and when I got there, it was the same as always, busy, people everywhere, people playing, people lining up to go inside, and so on. We went inside after the bell rang, and we hung up our bags and our coats, bought in our homework and books, and got ready to begin working, but as always, people where standing up and turning in homework, and telling the primary 4 teacher things they want her to know, or telling her things she needs to know, maybe something about homework. That was the chance I had to tell her the news, and then that would be when the news got out. I also told some of my friends beforehand. When the teacher heard, she was shocked, but also happy for me, and she asked me why we were moving, which was a good question, and I answered, “Because my dad has got a job in America, he is teaching at a university.” This was true, and I am not the kind of person who lies, especially in this situation. Anyway, my best friend was quite shocked as well, in fact probably more shocked than anybody else in the classroom except for me, but of course I already knew the news, I found out two days ago, so I probably wasn’t the most shocked after all.