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BOOK • •QA
Eleventeen
A Reading A–Z Level Q Leveled Book
Word Count: 1,310
Eleventeen

Written by Annette Carruthers

Illustrated by Michelle Dorenkamp

Visit www.readinga-z.com www.readinga-z.com

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Eleventeen

Written by Annette Carruthers Eleventeen

Level Q Leveled Book
Illustrated by Michelle Dorenkamp © Learning A–Z Correlation
Written by Annette Carruthers LEVEL Q
Illustrated by Michelle Dorenkamp
Fountas & Pinnell N
All rights reserved. Reading Recovery 30
www.readinga-z.com www.readinga-z.com DRA 30
 “I’m bored,” said Sarah, as she walked
into the kitchen for breakfast one Saturday
morning.

“Would you like to invite a friend over?”

asked her mother.

“No,” said Sarah, “that’s not the problem.

I’m bored being ten.”

“Well, your birthday is only a few weeks

away,” said her mother, “so you won’t have
to be ten much longer.”

Sarah turned eleventeen yesterday, which

made it a very special day. A person can turn
eleventeen only once, and most people never
turn eleventeen at all.

In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Sarah is the only person who has ever turned
eleventeen. Ever! Not a single other living
soul has done it. Not a single other dead soul
has done it either.

You’re probably wondering how Sarah

accomplished this rare and extraordinary feat.
This, of course, is that story.

Eleventeen • Level Q 3 4
 “I’m bored being eleven,” Sarah said.

“You’ve never even been eleven!” interjected

her big sister, Kate, entering the room. “I guess Uh-oh. Sarah needed another comeback,
you want to be a teenager, just like me.” quick, and she didn’t have one on the tip of her
tongue. Her eight-year-old brother, Noah—as
“I want to be like you about as much as I
usual, at the breakfast table before anyone
want to be a snail,” Sarah retorted, proud that
else—saved her.
she could think of a comeback so quickly.
“I wish you were both eighteen,” Noah said.
“Well, that’s funny because you are as slow
as one,” said Kate. “Why?” asked Mom.

Eleventeen • Level Q 5 6
 “Because then they’d both go away to
college, and I’d have Mommy all to myself.”

“What about Daddy?” asked Sarah.

“What about me?” Dad said as he walked

into the kitchen, opening the newspaper and
not looking where he was going.

Noah smirked and “humphed,” as if to say

that everyone knows dads are not nearly the
problem that big sisters are.

“Sarah’s bored being ten,” Mom said to

Dad. He looked up and noticed everyone
looking at him.

“Well, her birthday is only a few weeks

away,” he said brightly, as if he were sure he
had this one figured out. “She won’t have to
be ten much longer,” he concluded.

“We’ve been through that,” Sarah and Kate

said in unison.

Eleventeen • Level Q 7 8
 “Oh,” Dad said, “so what’s wrong with
being eleven?”

“It’s too far away from eighteen,” said

Noah.

“So what’s the big rush to be eighteen?”

asked Dad, clearly confused.

“Oh, never mind,” Sarah said, getting up

from the table.

“Aren’t you going to eat your breakfast?”

Mom asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Sarah said.

“Right,” piped in Kate, her voice dripping

with adolescent sarcasm, “she’s too busy
being bored to be hungry.”

“Kate, you’re being mean!” said Sarah,

storming out of the kitchen. As she left, she
heard her father say, for the millionth time,
“Kate, be nice to Sarah.”

Eleventeen • Level Q 9 10
 Sarah went to her room. She needed some Whenever Sarah had a dilemma, her father
silence, some time to think. She had to admit would tell her to “weigh the facts.” She was
that anything that ended with “teen” sounded never sure whether he was kidding or thought
better than anything that didn’t. “Eleven” dilemmas really could be solved by putting
isn’t bad, really. At least it has more than one facts on some kind of scale. Anyway, she’d
syllable. But then Sarah realized she’d have to never weighed the facts. But then, she’d never
spend a whole year being twelve, and twelve solved any dilemmas, either. Maybe there was
sounded just awful. Nothing very exciting something to Dad’s advice.
could happen to someone called “twelve,” she
supposed. She needed to be a teenager, but
that was too far away even to think about. It
was a dilemma, no doubt about that.

Eleventeen • Level Q 11 12
 Sarah took out her drawing pad and two The first thing she put in the teenager
colored pencils. She decided a table would be column was: can go to mall by myself. That
her scale to weigh the facts. The first column was a good one because Sarah most definitely
was labeled “being a teenager” and was in could not go to the mall by herself. She kept
lavender because it would be wonderful to be making entries, and finally the table looked
a teenager. like this:
The second
column was
labeled “being
eleven” and
was in royal
blue because
the color was full Can go to mall Can walk to park
of possibilities. by myself with Alika
The whole rest Can babysit to earn Can babysit for Noah
of the page was money
blank. Sarah started
thinking about
teenagers and
eleven-year-olds so she could decide what to
write. She wanted to list all the good things
about being a teenager and all the good things
about being eleven. She could then compare
the good things about each age and see which
was better.

Eleventeen • Level Q 13 14
 It was definitely exciting to be able to go
to the mall without your parents or your big
sister. The few times that Kate had taken
Sarah to the mall, she had made Sarah feel as
though she was even younger than ten. Sarah
had big dreams about walking into stores as a
cool teenager. She would choose how long she
stayed at each store, which store to go to next,
or to stay another ten minutes just looking at
the kittens.

Sarah started to think about what she’d put

in the “being eleven” column. Now that she
was turning eleven, she would have more
responsibility for herself and others.

She and Alika, her best friend, would be

able to jog down to the park to play soccer.
They could go any time they wanted as long
as it was before dark and they told their
parents where they were going. Sarah was
a good athlete, one of the fastest kids in class,
and great at the standing long jump. The park
was more fun than the mall. But she had been
dying to go to the mall by herself.

Eleventeen • Level Q 15 16
 As Sarah looked down her table’s columns,
she began to realize something. She liked
babysitting because she could earn money.
Sixteen-year-olds got to babysit all the time.
When Sarah turned eleven, her parents said she In fact, that was another way she would be
could babysit Noah and they would pay her. like a sixteen-year-old. She could use her own
She would still be too young to babysit other money and buy things she wanted. It wasn’t
people’s children, but at least she could babysit like an allowance, with her parents still saying
Noah. Sarah thought that in that way, she yes or no to what she bought. She would earn
would be close to being sixteen. At eleven she the money so the decisions about what she
could babysit Noah and earn money and buy could spend it on would be hers—just like a
the things she wanted, like blue nail polish. sixteen-year-old.

Eleventeen • Level Q 17 18
 Sarah completed the last line in the table:
can spend my money on what I want. Then it
was there in lavender and blue. At eleven, she
would be a whole lot closer to being sixteen
than she was at ten. Actually, if you look at it
one way, eleven was only five words away
from sixteen. That’s when it dawned on her.

Eleventeen! That’s what she would be! Like

k
par
to a teenager—responsible, able to earn money, and
w alk
n make her own decisions about how to spend
Ca a
t h Alik r
wi s i t fo it—but not yet a teenager in years. Besides, she
ll ab y
to ma a nb thought, it’s more important to act older than to
o C
n g lf ah
Ca s e rn No my be older. Her dad was right—when you have a
m y e a n d
by to spe what
b ysit an dilemma, all you have to do is weigh the facts.
a nb
a C
n e y on
C mo t
o ney y n Sarah knew people might ask her what she
m
n dm I wa
p e t meant when she told them she’s eleventeen,
n s n wha
Ca o
ney but that was no problem. She would tell them,
mo t
n “Oh, someday you’ll find out, when you’re
I wa
eleventeen.”

But of course they wouldn’t, because no one

had ever been eleventeen before, and probably
no one would ever be again!

Eleventeen • Level Q 19 20