Who, Sir? Me, Sir? - Yep, me, apparently

I’ve always maintained that a huge chunk of my personality is that of a pre-adolescent boy. There’s the inclination to dress primarily in jeans and trainers; the love of bad action movies (not for nothing did we go to see “Wolverine” the evening of my birthday). Yeah, sure, OK; but that could define most of the population at some point or another, I suppose. There's always been some other, random element of small boys (but not small girls, who seem so much more knowing) that seems so familiar to me.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled back across one of my favourite-ever kids’ books. It was turned into a TV series too, I think, but beyond my time, so I don’t have any associations of that side of thing; mine are all with the written word (story of my life, really). The linked version seems to be some kind of teaching copy; the battered old edition I have says it was printed in 1983, which seems about right.

Anyway, two pages into re-reading it I came across this description, and it struck such a chord that I belted down the stairs, book in hand, screeching, “look, it’s me!”. Substitute the "Hoomey" for "Sarah" and it entirely sums up the 12-year-old-boy-ness I've been trying to articulate all these years:

"Hoomey, a transparently innocent, completely unmalicious, undersized, earnest child was given to state unpleasant truths out of pure honesty. He was sensitive, vulnerable, amazed when his honest truths gave offence".

I’m guessing this post would be hideously narcissistic if I wasn’t relating to a fictional 12-year-old boy – or maybe that just makes it worse….