At the start of the book, Eli is a young ten-year-old boy that is aware that his surroundings are not perfect. He asks people if they’re good and doesn’t think he is a particularly good person himself, but he tries and he keeps questioning. He is a very smart boy that sees a lot of details but he has no clue how normal kids grow up.

Guided by the chapter titles of the book we learn more about the kind of person Eli Bell is becoming. The titles explain him in three words like newspaper headlines try to summarize newsworthy items. A report of his life. Eli also has a story, one worthy of being in the news. He is one of those cases and he is increasingly aware of it. With him we try to swallow the world instead of being swallowed by it and even though he talks about what happened to him, in a way, he talks even less than his mute brother.

My favorite character in the book was Slim, the ex-convict turned babysitter for Eli and his brother August. His words inspired Eli to manipulate time and also served as a good reminder for me to turn inspiration into action. “Do your time before it does you. Make the sunshine hours go slow. Pretend you’re extremely busy with nonsense stuff to make time go faster.” Knowing the words are based on life in prison makes them even stronger. 

Later in the book, we get some more quotes about time: “The greatest flaw of time is that it doesn’t exist”; we created the calendars after all, and “All of your life is leading up to tomorrow”.

The message: action, now!

Sleighbells ring, are you listening?
Gone away is the bluebird….
and your end is a dead blue wren.

Merry Christmas!