It’s not only because I’m a teacher of adolescents and an author of a coming-of-age novel that I am drawn to books with kid narrators. Young people and children have a way of seeing the world that adults are missing. Our days are short, mundane, expected, frazzled, whereas children experience things for the first time much more often than we do. They are surprised, shocked, amazed, scared, bewildered, overwhelmed, and stumped infinitely more often than we are. All of this newness produces wonderfully weird and often outrageous commentary on everything from the ordinary to the extraordinary that life throws their way. Who better to learn from about the world anew than someone who is old enough to know that that over there is a bad guy, but also notice that the bad guy is vulnerable and lost himself.
Aga Maksimowska’s short stories and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in print and online in Australia and Canada, most notably in Kurungabaa, Soliloquies Anthology, The National Post and The Globe and Mail. Her debut novel, Giant, a story of an odd girl’s coming-of-age during the fall of Communism in Poland, was released by Pedlar Press in May. She teaches English and Creative Writing at a Toronto high school.
Twelve-year-old Baby, via the incredibly skilled hand of Heather O’Neill, is full of mind-blowing metaphors and similes about the most ordinary occurrences in life. Although Baby’s circumstances are horrible, she manages to relay her story without even the slightest bit of schmaltziness.
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the world. It’s where he was born. It’s where he and Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. There are endless wonders that let loose Jack’s imagination: the snake under Bed that he constructs out of eggshells; the imaginary world projected through the TV; the coziness of Wardrobe, where Ma tucks him in safely at n …
Five-year-old Jack is the youngest kid on this list. The reader has a steep learning curve while negotiating Jack’s syntax and diction, adeptly crafted by his writer-mama, Emma Donoghue. Donoghue does not shy away from humour, as in Jack’s many recurring Silly Penis references, “Silly penis is always standing up in the morning, I push him down,” and other astute life observations.
Fifteen-year-old Tecumseh narrates this strange yet magical journey penned by Thomas King. This is a story of friendship, family, community, identity, and adventure, as only a teenager with his two best friends by his side—a dog and a cousin—can tell it.
Camilla Gibb’s narrator begins the story at age six and ends it as an adult. In a narrative as dark as Mouthing the Words, it is the original and quirky voice of Thelma that captures and nourishes the reader. Thelma can also be a riot, even in such a disturbing story.
In this remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka, during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds and we meet a deli …
Arjie is seven at the start of this excellent coming-of-age novel, and a teenager at its conclusion. His story is as compelling as it is memorable, due in great part to Arjie’s gentle and wise voice.
In the title story of David Bezmozgis’s debut collection, his narrator, Mark, is an introverted 16-year-old who smokes drugs in his parents basement and is awkward with girls. Bezmozgis creates exceptionally layered and believable adolescents with his dialogue
Standing outside his fatherâ??s study in Paraguay, Rudi is smoking cigarettes, trying to work up the courage to go in. It has been seven years since he stood in that same spot; seven years since he left his family and their history behind him. As a teenager, Rudi discovered that his father was a doctor at Auschwitz. Trying to reconcile his inherit …
The writing in this play is so crisp, so clean, that if you’re not fortunate enough to see East of Berlin on stage, you can read it in one sitting, like a captivating short story. Our narrator, Rudi, is seventeen when he learns of his father’s role in the Holocaust. During the play’s flashbacks, he reveals himself as a quiet yet volatile adolescent, a likeable young man who does some unlikeable things.
When young Vittorio Innocentes mother, Cristina, is bitten by a snake in the family stable, no one sees the blue-eyed stranger leaving except for Vittorio. He struggles to keep his mothers secret but secrets in a small village are hard to keep, and while Cristinas belly gradually grows under her loose dresses, they find themselves shunned by their …
Seven-year-old Vittorio Innocente is an aptly named narrator. He vacillates between being shy and innocent to moments of impressive chutzpah and even glory. He can also be funny without knowing it, which of course is the best kind of funny.
