Every seven-year-old deserves a superhero. That’s just how it is.
Anyone who doesn’t agree needs their head examined.
That’s what Elsa’s granny says, at least.
The opening lines of the novel get repeated a few times over the course of the narrative. Repetition of lines is always important and worth paying attention to when they pop up. This particular opening informs the reader of several important things. First off, there is a seven-year-old named Elsa and her granny who are important characters. It is the grandmother who wields the greatest influence on Elsa. The seemingly whimsical assertion about superheroes is divulged to be something of greater significance than whimsy with the line about those who disagree. Over the course of about twenty-five words, the author conveys about a thousand words worth of important information.
…all the other seven-year-olds in her school are as idiotic as seven-year-olds tend to be, but Elsa is different.
This is an especially important quote. Not only because it situates Elsa as being something unusual, but because of that last word: different. Being different is what the novel is all about. Or, rather more precisely, the novel is all about accepting those who are different. First impressions come under the hammer of the author; what appears to be at first is often merely perception without all the facts. There is a strain of Shirley Jackson haunting this story of Elsa and her grandmother. It helps to know that Elsa is not idiotic, too.
Granny has been telling these fairy tales for as long as Elsa can remember. In the beginning they were only to make Elsa go to sleep, and to get her to practice Granny’s secret language, and a little because Granny is just about as nutty as a granny should be.
Once again, much is conveyed to the reader through an economy of words. The fairy tales that Granny tells Elsa are of supreme significance to the narrative. In fact, a good deal of the book is the relating of what goes on in the setting of the fairy tales: Land-of-Almost-Awake. Of greater value is the information provided in reason number three for the telling of tales. Granny is nutty, but that is merely another word for “different.” It is usually “different” from the perspective of those who do not care much for those who are different. Not Elsa, of course, but then one must remember: “Elsa is different.”
“Sorry.”
The title is to be taken quite literally. By the time the ending has come, Elsa has said the word “sorry” within the context of the title more times than can be kept track of because that really is the plot of the story. Of course, as usual, to merely state the plot does not tell the whole story. The title gives no indication whatever of to whom Elsa is passing along the information, much less why. And it is the why that proves even more essential than the whom. Still, to be perfectly accurate, the story would not be a deep and dimensional if one did not learn both sides of the equation, for it is the knowledge of to whom Elsa is saying “sorry” that allows a full understanding of why she is saying it.
