READING RAINBOW
ONE AFTERNOON LAST fall, I found myself reading my picture book The Sea Serpent and Me to a group of schoolchildren in the island nation of Grenada. The story is about a little girl who befriends a tiny serpent that falls out of her bathroom faucet. I had thought it would appeal to children who lived by the sea, but as I looked at their uncomprehending faces, I realized how wrong I was. It wasn’t just my American accent and unfamiliar vocabulary, but the story’s central dilemma: The girl wants to keep the serpent at home with her, but as each day passes, he grows larger and larger.
“What do you think she should do?” I asked, holding up an illustration of the serpent’s coils spilling out of the bathtub.
“Kill him and cook him,” one kid suggested.
It took me a few seconds to understand that he
