Prologue to Why Do We Think About Age – A Kit Story

Written By: Captain Jag CT-55/11 9009

Kit Kittredge is another subject of Esme123's writing, and is one of the American Girl characters written by Valerie Tripp. In the series books, Kit was a nine-year-old growing up during the Great Depression, and her stories take place around 1934-1935. In this fanfic, Kit is well into her teenage years as the Depression is drawing to a close (or is it?), and is struggling over the surging waves of teen relationships.

This fanfic is basically a love quadrangle in its wealings and dealings with the four characters featured in the story: Kit Kittredge, her best friend Ruth Ann Smithens (a.k.a. Ruthie for short), Will Stirling, and Will the hobo, whom Kit befriends. Almost every American Girl fan who is familiar with the Kit stories will no doubt favor a Kit/Stirling romance relationship, since both Kit and Will are about the same age. (In Meet Kit, Will Stirling takes lodging at Kit's house during the midst of the Depression.) In this fanfic, it seems that Ruthie takes a fancy with Will, and is rather keen on keeping him with her, so she does not take kindly to Kit trying to steal back Will. In addition to that, Will the hobo takes a liking to Kit, and thus those teen relationships are having quite an interesting addition. It is unlikely whether we get to see these problems resolved, since Esme123 decided to place the buffer on the teenage life of Kit Kittredge the American Girl, but that wholly depends on the original author herself.

The story was revised during a time when Captain Jag was lacking in familiarity with Kit and the other characters of the series.