By Olive Beck / New York City
She may just be in kindergarten, but Olive Beck knows how to go after a story. The younger sister of two of The Insider’s rising columnists, Olive shyly asked the Editor recently if she might write a story about her family’s upcoming trip to Niagara Falls. Naturally, we jumped at the chance!
After nabbing the assignment, the author proceeded to bring along a notebook on her journey, in which she drew two columns: one for events that she would write about, and one for events that she would not. (See below.) She also directed family photographers to take pictures to accompany her writing. Below is Olive’s account of her journalistic adventure, dictated from her notes:
Hi. I’m Olive. I’m five and three-quarters. I’ve just come back from Niagara Falls. I went there with my grandparents and cousins and uncle and aunt and my family. At the airport, I saw a candidate for governor, Tom Suozzi. He took a picture with us.
Then we went to the hotel. We got FROOT LOOPS for breakfast!!! It was so yummy. After breakfast, we went on a path by the river to the Maid of the Mist, where you get to see the Falls. We saw geese on the way and goslings. We saw a rainbow over the Falls.
To get on the boat, we needed a poncho that covered you from head to toe. It was blue. I got sprinkled! The Falls were beautiful. We took a thousand pictures.
Olive's wonderful waterfall weekend!
After, we went up the elevator to get back to outdoors, and we took pictures with MICKEY MOUSE! He was visiting the Falls too!
After lunch, we went to Three Sisters Island. It’s funny because I have two sisters! On the way home, we saw another rainbow. I spotted it!
The next morning, we went to a museum about electricity from water. We had to wear these necklaces that said “Power Player” on one side and “Place your picture here” on the other side. But it was actually asking for a sticker. So we took our pictures and then printed them out and put them on our badges. The grown-ups didn’t get their pictures taken.
We went to get ice cream in the afternoon. My ice cream matched my shirt because it was chocolate with rainbow sprinkles, and my shirt was brown with gems that matched the sprinkles.
You want to know something really silly? Our plane got delayed coming home, and then it was cancelled! We stayed overnight in a hotel and woke up around 4:30 am to get on a plane. It was a great trip!
Olive, who will turn six in August, is finishing kindergarten at PS 87 in Manhattan. She loves reading chapter books, riding her bike, and playing with her babysitter Stephanie. When she grows up, she wants to be a scientist.