"The American Man At Age Ten" Questions

Susan Orlean, author of “The American Man At Age Ten”, follows Colin, her subject, around for what seems like a week or more to try and really get to know him. It appears she hangs out with him as much as possible and talks to anyone who enters his life on a daily basis. She goes to school with him and observes how he interacts with everyone. Susan hangs out with Colin and his friend Japeth as they go to the arcade and she's with Colin when he's with his family. Susan is even with Colin when it's just him and his ten year old imagination. I believe she pretty much has unlimited access to him and its seems she is free to interview anyone who is in his life. I think Susan interviewed his family and shows it by quoting his dad who said that “living with Colin is like living with a Martian who had done some reading on American Culture”. She also may have interviewed Colin's friend Japeth but Colin was also answering the questions and it seems the interview wasn't very formal but just her hanging out with the boys and asking them questions as a friend and not an interviewee. Mostly, however, she talked to Colin.

Susan's focusing question, I assume, is how does a ten year old boy think and react to the world around him. A lot of her observations seem to indicate that she saw a boy who was slowly starting to notice the world around him and trying to understand it as an adult, as most ten year olds try to do.Yet, seeing as how he was still so young and naïve he hadn't completely grasped all of the concepts yet as most ten year olds don't. However, there seems to be a lot of very personal information that is just “Colin” information and not ten year old boy information so the essay doesn't quite answer the question that I believe she was trying to answer.