Literary Autobiographies: Part One

Ava: At first, your autobiography seems to be moving chronologically, starting with your parents' insistence that you speak properly (an experience I can attest to), then moving on to reading and eventually writing. It takes kind of a sudden turn when you go back to talk about where your parents came from. Although I've heard you tell me the story of how your parents ran away together before, seeing it on paper makes me love it even more. I especially like how you say that if it weren't for your grandmother's wrath, you and your siblings might never have been born. It's strange sometimes to think in those terms, but it's totally true, and the whole anecdote is well-written.

Although I think your transition into your parents' history came a tad out of left field and away from your story, I think you transitioned back to yourself very well. Your parents are a big part of how you came to be you, and I think their story IS necessary in there. Overall, your whole story came full circle, and I feel like I've gotten to know your whole family. =] (oh yeah, an emoticon was needed)

Josh: I think you probably had the most unorthodox educational experience ever. Just to think that your could crochet and speak French before you could read English is just astonishing. I love the theater story, as you already know; it's an adorable and relavent story, and I like how you tie in your ability to be a "talented listener" as your way to beat the system.

I'm interested to know what exactly you thought about going to the "gifted" school. We know that your mother blames it for your lack of interest in reading, but you don't seem to take a stance on it. Do you think things would've turned out differently if no one had ever refered to you as "gifted"?

Also, when you're telling the story about the parent-teacher conference, I had a couple of questions. I wanted to know how old you were by this time, and also whether you COULD read and chose not to, or if you were still illiterate at this point. I think if I knew these things, I'd have a better idea of just how serious a reading problem this was.

Alex: I thought it was so funny how you were one of those troublemaking little kids who was only a troublemaker because you were smarter and therefore bored with the lessons. Totally misunderstood! I also found it interesting how many similar experiences you and I have had, like the love of scaring the shit out of our friends at sleepovers, or playing "pass the story" over a campfire, which I did with my brother and cousins when I was little. All of these little anecdotes about your Dad's lessons illustrate a lot about how your writing skills developed, and I liked the angle you took that most of your abilities came from outside of the classroom.

There was one small thing that bothered me. When you said, "I got a C- even though I'm sure my creativity level was far above the other 8th graders..." it sounds a little pretentious. I'm sure your Charles Manson essay WAS much more interesting to read than the others, but you might just want to tweak your wording.