Asakiyume mita

Storm Reyes talks today on StoryCorps about growing up as the hungry daughter of migrant workers, herself working full-time from age eight. She could never have any books; books were too heavy for a family constantly on the move to lug around. Then when she was twelve, the bookmobile came to the fields. . .

"I learned to fight with a knife long before I learned how to ride a bicycle"

when I saw this big vehicle on the side of the road, and it was filled with books, I immediately stepped back. Fortunately when the staff member saw me, kind of waved me in, and said, “These are books, and you can take one home. You have to bring it back in two weeks, but you can take them home and read them.” I’m like, “What’s the catch?” And he explained to me there was no catch. Then he asked me what I was interested in.

And the night before the bookmobile had come, in the camps, there was an elder who was telling us about the day that Mount Rainier blew up, and the devastation from the volcano. So I told the bookmobile person that I was a little nervous about the mountain blowing up. And he said, “You know, the more you know about something, the less you will fear it.”

And then he gave me a book about volcanos.

She also saw a book on dinosaurs, so she took that home, too. "I didn’t just read them, I devoured them. And I came back in two weeks and had more questions. And he gave me more books and that started it. That taught me that hope is not just a word."

Do you have any stories of being liberated by books? I know in the "We Need Diverse Books" campaign, lots of people have stories about the transformative effect of reading a book that featured a person like themselves as a main character, for example. For myself, books just opened up other worlds, made my life of the imagination richer, when I was a child, and as an adult, they've helped me see how much is possible. There are so many more possibilities in life than seems apparent from wherever you're standing. Books help you see farther.