[oilchange]

> My problem with your reasoning is that it relies on a literal interpretation of the words spoken in the book.

What? Now you are just desperately grasping at straws.

> The father says that "there are no other kids his age", yes, but remember...most of the book is told through the father's eyes.

And? So what? The kid also says so, not that it matters.

> There is no information technology anymore...

That's right. Before the internet and IT, nobody saw any children. This comment is the dumbest thing I've read in a long while.

> all he knows is that he has not seen any kids and that he hasn't heard of any kids. He is an unreliable narrator.

The kid also said so. And I don't think you know what "unreliable narrator" is. There has to be clues within the story to imply that he is unreliable ( psychologically, memorywise, etc ). Not that he doesn't have access to a smartphone.

> Have you ever picked up a six year old? They weigh practically nothing.

Yes. Not only that, I was six year old once. Long before I was 6 years old, my parents stopped carrying me around. And you are being intentionally sneaky here. Who said anything about picking up a 6 year old. I said carry a 6 year old how many miles they had to go.

> Perhaps if he gets off to the idea of betrayal, or if he really does think that having a kid follow him for 10 miles would be easier convincing him would be easier, but I have a hard time believing that.

Yes. It's easier to believe that in a starving world, a random kind couple is willing to take in someone else's child to feed. Something his own father struggled immensely to do. That is easier to believe.

It's obvious what happened. It's why you ignored every one of my points except the absolutely nonsense about "no more information technology..."

Let me guess, you are the type of person who watched the movie No Country for Old Men and believe that chigurh didn't kill the wife. Or that the girl in the red dress in schindler's list wasn't dead but playing dead because she was saved by some magical good nazis. At this point I hope you at pretending to be trolling to save yourself some embarrassment.

I'm so dumb. I forgot that before information technology, kids were invisible. Thank you.