Talk:Penpal/@comment-4715955-20150311204504

I hate to bring this up when I haven't read the whole story yet (and when the story has been online for so long already, and when there's a chance that someone already brought it up before), but the letter in Balloons jumped out at me immediately: Kindergarteners cannot write like that. A Second Grader could probably write it because they learned how to write complete sentences the year before; and a Third or Fourth Grader probably would have no trouble with it at all; but at least in the US, you don't learn to string sentences together until First Grade, and even then it's barely legible unless a highly advanced kid wrote it (Mom runs a very advanced First Grade classroom, and they can basically write like that, but only after she's worked with them for a semester or so, and only because they're brilliant). If the narrator was in an advanced class of some kind, that would have to be established before the letter comes into play. Even as I read past the initial letter -- to the stuff listed in the kid's desk, and the fact that he and his buddy are capable of running a snow cone stand and counting their profits on their own -- I'm still convinced he's a First or Second Grader at the very youngest. It's impossible to believe that this kid is only five, and the otherwise decent story feels kind of ridiculous because of it.