My Reading Biography (Beatrice)

I blame my bad eyesight on compulsive reading when I was younger. Who could resist reading past bedtime underneath the blankets with a torchlight?

I was lucky - I had parents who were (and are still) readers and filled the home library with Reader's Digest, National Geographic, Encyclopedias, Textbooks from their school days, Self-Help books on Child Discipline, Christianity, Cooking, Sewing and the list goes on. At my request, they also brought in Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene and many unknown authors who wrote the little books which came with cassette tapes. The textbooks I completely ignored; my ten-year-old mind could not understand the Greek that was written in them. But I devoured the Reader's Digest, the Encyclopedias and Self-Help books. I laughed at the jokes in Reader's Digest (there are copies all the way back to 1979), learnt how to make imaginary Fried Noodles from the cookbooks and studied the patterns in the sewing books. I would read what little I could understand on the subject of Child Discipline and disagree with everything in the book.I would memorize facts from the Encyclopedias just so that I could see the admiration in my siblings' eyes as I told them about volcanoes and Niagara Falls. I used to bring my plastic kitchen out into the garden and pluck leaves and flowers for ingredients while pretending that I was making souffles. The cassette/book series was called "Story Time for 4 Year Olds" and was meant for my younger siblings but I think I was the one who ruined the cassette tape by playing it too many times. The cassette would signal that it was time to turn the page with a little bell and I would amuse myself reading the book with the cassette many times over. Just to prove a point, I can still remember parts of the little rhyme at the beginning of that book:

"I'd like to be a farmer,
I'd like to be a cook,
but just before I start
I'd like to read this book." - Story Time for 4 Year Olds (whenever you hear this sound *ding*, turn the page over)

For awhile I was adamant that I was not Chinese. I lived in the world of Malory Towers, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, the Famous Five and sometimes the magical lands of The Faraway Tree. I knew what pounds and sixpences were and thought they sounded cooler than dollars and cents. I traveled to other lands where there were Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Going Solo and Boy. The Chronicles of Narnia was well-loved to the point of nearly coming apart (and it was on loan from an aunt!) and for a period in upper primary I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High and The Babysitter's Club. How could I be Chinese? I must be English. It took the rest of primary school for me to figure out that my race was not in the language I spoke but the colour of my skin.

In Secondary School I came across a copy of Jack London's The Call of the Wild and so began my journey to the Arctic. I was depressed when Buck was bullied by Spitz, felt triumphant when Buck ruled the other dogs and was utterly scornful of Mercedes, Charles and Hal. I loved John Thornton because Buck loved him and thought it was fun to eat dried fish. That copy is still at home and I become a little annoyed when other people touch it. It's mine - the story, the book, the experience.

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club was the book I turned to when I was distressed, going through all the mood swings of adolescence. The uneasy relationship that Jing Mei, Rose, Waverly and Lena had with their mothers was an assurance that I was not alone. On the hand, I also sympathized with their mothers and on my less self-centered days, I would realize that my mother did not find me easy as well.

The books that I read now in adulthood do not impact me the way these books did. I do not get transported into another culture - I do not request for cold cucumber sandwiches and meat pies and hope to find a fairy in my garden. At best, the characters affect me only for a moment. It's sobering and I wonder why.

A few months ago, a friend brought me to a bookstore where I found The Chronicles of Narnia. There was a spark within me, an elation at meeting a dear old friend again. The books had been returned to my aunt many years ago and I had never gotten the chance to look for my own copies. I carried them home, hugging them close to my heart and the magic of my childhood unfolded again that evening. Perhaps I am like Peter Pan but the books from my childhood are my favorite ones. Story Time for 4 Year olds, anyone? Play that tape again for me and I think I would really cry.