Originally published 18 December 1995
Sit here, Victoria, next to Grandpa, and I’ll read you another chapter from our book.
Yes, Songs of Papa’s Island, by Barbara Kerley. Look, here on the back flap is a picture of the author. It says this is her first book. It’s a lovely book, with illustrations by Katherine Tillotson, and that’s one of the reasons why I gave it to you. The winter holidays are a perfect time for books.
Barbara Kerley has a daughter, just like the daughter in the book. And Barbara Kerley once lived on an island in the Pacific Ocean, just like Mama in the book. Mama tells her daughter stories, about the time when Mama and Papa lived on an island in the Pacific Ocean. She calls the stories “songs.”
When Mama and Papa lived on the island, the little girl was not yet born. But she was alive in her Mama’s belly. Waiting, waiting to be born.
I’ll read you one of the songs, Victoria. This one is called “Ceilings, Walls, and Windows”:
“Geckoes. On the day you were born, you lived on an island in the middle of the ocean. In the middle of this island was a small house. And on the ceilings, walls, and windows of this house, there lived geckoes.”
Geckoes. What a wonderful name, Victoria, for funny little creatures with hooks on their toes. Tiny little hooks that let the geckoes climb on walls and ceilings. Lots of little geckoes, upside down.
Would you like to have geckoes in your house, Victoria? Listen, as Mama continues:
“When you have fifty geckoes living in your house, you get to know them pretty well. I liked them because they ate mosquitoes. They’re different colors: gray or brown or green. They have round eyes but they don’t have any eyelids. Without eyelids, a gecko can’t blink. So it keeps its eyeballs wet with its tiny pink tongue.”
That’s one of the things I like about this book, Victoria. The things that Mama sees. She sees lots of things that most of us miss. Like the colors of the geckoes — gray or green or brown. Like the missing eyelids. Like the tiny pink tongue.
Mama teaches her little girl to see. That’s a wonderful gift for a little girl to receive. More wonderful than any expensive toy that Santa might leave under the tree. Geckoes gray and green and brown. Geckoes wetting their eyeballs with tiny pink tongues.
“The pregnant geckoes have huge bellies, with an egg on the right and an egg on the left. If I came home at night and the lights were already on, I’d check the windows before I went in. With the light shining behind them, the geckoes became transparent. I could see their insides. There would be two white ovals nestled beneath the spine.”
Imagine, Victoria. Imagine seeing two little eggs inside the mama gecko. There are so many things in the world that are hidden from our sight. Invisible things. Important things. That’s why we have telescopes, and microscopes, and x‑ray machines. But the best instrument of all is the human eye. That’s what Mama used to see the two little eggs nestled beneath the spine. The human eye and a little imagination.
“Once I opened the curtains and found two tiny eggs on the windowsill. I left the eggs alone, and one day they were gone. Two more babies were walking on the walls.”
Two baby geckoes! Most people would call in the exterminator, but I think the little girl’s Mama was lucky to have geckoes in the house. When your Grandma and I go to the Bahamas, we sometimes have little brown geckoes in the house. Just one or two. They don’t walk on the walls and ceilings, only the floor.
Now we are nearing the end of the song. The little girl has been born, like the two little geckoes, and Mama has brought her home from the hospital. Listen to Mama’s song again, Victoria, and you will understand why I gave you this book:
“Finally it reached the spot where my icy drink had been. A ring of condensation lay on the table top. The tiny gecko drank like a wildebeest at a watering hole. In the sleepy days that followed, I would set my drink out early. And as you nursed and dozed, the tiny gecko would drink deeply from that ring of water.”
Lots of geckoes were in the house, but the little one reminded Mama of her little girl.
“Yep. That little gecko reminded me of you, or of who I hoped you’d be: someone who explored the universe, right-side up and upside down, but stopped every once in a while for a nice, cool drink of water.”
That’s what I wish for you, Victoria, on the best of all Christmases — what Barbara Kerley gives her little girl and the readers of her book. Not a bigger television, not more computer games, but desire to explore the universe for the rest of your life, right-side up and upside down.
Excerpts from Songs of Papa’s Island, by Barbara Kerley, illustrated by Katherine Tillotson. Text © 1995 by Barbara Kerley. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
