Orlean's description of Colin is very refreshing. She goes into great detail about the boy, but none of it feels cumbersome. She achieves this with her pace which is clearly shown by the following: "There is a fine school system in Glen Ridge, but Elaine and Jim, who are both schoolteachers, choose to send their children to a parents' cooperative elementary school in Montclair, a neighboring suburb. Currently, Colin is in fifth grade. He is a good student". Here she begins the paragraph with a very long description of the type of school Colin's parents send him to, but she immediately follows that up with two very short sentence. Thus, she keeps the reader's attention.
What I loved most about this piece was how Orlean's captured the essence of a ten-year-old boy. No matter what gender, at ten every kid comes to the realization that they are beginning the process to grow up into an adult. She describes him as a "ten-year-old American man" and she reports that he describes himself as a "kid-up" because he can't decide of whether he wants to be called a kid or a grown up. Even Colin's idea of his future career exemplifies his confusion about growing up. He doesn't want to be a police officer because he thinks it'll be too much work, so instead he was to work for the FBI which he believes would be easier. All in all, it is Orlean's introduction of Colin that I enjoyed the most because it felt like I was being reintroduced to my childhood/tween self.
I also recognized how Colin described himself as a "kid-up" and I really liked that. It perfectly describes his personality.
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