Some readers may tend to steer clear of first-person
narration, especially with child narrators. In response to that, I say that
if you want to see a writer do first-person well, read Neil Gaiman’s work.
Specially The Ocean at the End of the
Lane. Part of what makes the narration effective—both in first-person and with a
kid—is that it captures the atmosphere of childhood in all its mythical, treacherous glory.
There’s also some temporal distance at play, even if it’s not always apparent.
The voice itself belongs to a middle-aged man reflecting on
a series of memories from childhood he’d lost. No, it’s not a soap opera-worthy
case of amnesia. These foggy recollections are triggered when he visits the
Hempstock farm after a funeral (never told whose funeral—there’s a lot of names
we don’t know, actually). He doesn’t even realize how much he’s forgotten
until, while staring into a duck pond that his friend Lettie Hempstock called
“the ocean,” he’s mentally brought back to his seven-year-old self.
