People in Books

As a young girl growing up in the Caribbean paradise of Belize, I had no idea that I was growing up in the Caribbean paradise of Belize. I thought my life was normal. I didn't know I lived in the jungle, we called it “the bush.” I thought normal people everywhere heard howler monkeys late at night. My life was never boring, but I never thought it equaled the lives of people in books. I started reading when I was four and was forever hooked. I had discovered an entry into a whole new world, one where princesses kissed frogs who turned into handsome princes, and where children solved frightening mysteries, narrowly avoiding death at the hands of Bad Guys. In this world families went on “vacations” and spent entire weeks in hotels at the beach or camping in tents in the mountains and roasting hot dogs; here too giants freely roamed the earth, swallowing seas and stepping across entire forests. People in Books lived such exciting lives.

My mother kept our bookshelves stocked with an amazing variety of books: ancient Greek myths to missionary biographies, the Grimm Brothers to C.S. Lewis, Dr. Paul Brand with his leprosy research to Dr. Suess with his scary green pants. All of these authors and more showed up in our lives, to be read, reread, discussed, and if the book was thick enough, even used as a booster seat to elevate small children to comfortable eating heights. We obtained a lot of these marvels through Reader's Service, a book club which shipped cast-off library and schoolbooks to poor deprived people in faraway lands.

The magical world of books introduced me to other lives, the funny, fascinating, sad, exciting lives of People in Books. A few of my favorites were about girls who went to boarding school. They actually slept at their school, and ate there and everything—so sometimes my sisters and I would pretend to be at a boarding school, rather than waking up at home and doing schoolwork at the kitchen table. We were not sisters, but new best friends making up secret languages and telling stories with the silverware. Like People in Books, we pretended we too drove places in station wagons or cars, not in the back of a truck, and drank milk from cows on the farm, not from powdered Klim mixed with rainwater. People in Books had fairy godmothers who put curses on them so when they spoke unkind words toads came hopping out of their mouths, but when they spoke nice things, diamonds and daisies came tumbling out. Ah, daisies...now diamonds were pretty enough, but since the wearing of such baubles was highly condemned by my Mennonite upbringing, I wasn't particularly interested. Daisies, now, were the stuff of magic. Daisies could be used to discover whether he loved me or he loved me not. And they could be used to make daisy chains. People in Books were always making daisy chains and wearing them about their necks and as crowns on their heads. Diamonds may be sinful, but nowhere did I see where one could not wear a chain of flowers. I pulled red hibiscus off our hedge and wove them into chains, but I really wished I could see a real daisy—or a field of daisies—like those People in Books.

Some of my favorite books were missionary biographies about real missionaries, strange people who lived in far off exotic places like Africa and China, with people who looked funny, and lived in “huts” and ate strange foods like roasted grubs. We never ate grubs. Iguana and fried chicken feet, on the other hand, were delicious, but that was completely normal. My hair stood on end as I read of these brave missionaries' encounters with warring “natives,” lions, marauding elephants, and other strange creatures. I wished that one day I could meet a real missionary. I studied old black and white pictures of smartly dressed nurses, their starched white uniforms and caps standing out in sharp contrast to the dirty Indian streets behind them, and wished I could help operate on that leper (political correctness was never really a factor in my dreams) so he could use his hands again, or help to deliver a baby in the dark corner of that African hut. Those huts fascinated me. People really lived in them, according to the books, instead of living in nice houses, like the homes of my friends, which were generally one room thatch houses with a packed dirt or concrete floor.

People in Books sparked my imagination, inspired me to reach further than I thought I could, and to dream completely impossible dreams. I never got to open a clinic in the jungle, wearing a starched white cap and dress, but my wrinkle-resistant cotton scrubs are quite comfortably worn in. I've never lived in a hut, though some ostentatious American once referred to our perfectly nice thatch houses in Belize as such. I've never done surgery on the hands of a leper, but I have used mycobacterium to help treat bladder cancer. I've never met a giant, but while living in China, I entered clothing stores to the greeting “We haf no clothing for such beeg people here. Maybe eet ees best for you to try anodder store.” I've delivered babies by lantern light. I've eaten roasted grubs. I've even gone on an actual “vacation.” Twice! While I still haven't had daisies come out of my mouth when I speak—that may be because I tend more towards sarcasm than sweetness—I do have daisies planted in my flowerpots out front, though I'm still waiting for any diamonds to appear. But I've realized that even with all of this, there is only one way I can really join the People in Books. I'll have to write a book. About me. Any publishers looking for a good autobiography?