"Lost in a River of Grass" by Ginny Rorby

There are only a few places in the world where I do not want to travel. The Everglades is one. (The Amazon and Clyde Peelings Reptile Land are others) Even reading a book about the Everglades was a bit of a stretch for me. The reason? I'm utterly terrified of snakes.

Or course, so was Sarah at the beginning of the book. As the book opens, fourteen year-old Sarah had just begun attending the Glades Academy, a private school where she'd been accepted on a swimming scholarship. However, she quickly realizes that she is the girl from the "other side of the tracks." When she finds herself miserably traipsing through the Everglades on a weekend field trip, it doesn't take much convincing for her to ditch her classmates and join a nice local boy named Andy on a rather sketchy airboat ride. He promises her they'll be back before lunch.

Well, if they had returned before lunch, there would not have been much to write about.  The sketchy airboat sinks in a very remote part of the Everglades. Sarah and Andy realize that they have to trudge back to civilization on their own, sharing a can of Spam and a bottle of Gatorade between them. However, to provide a bit of comic relief throughout the ordeal, the author causes the two teens to cross paths with an orphaned baby duck. This of course spurs a bit of tension between the two. Andy who wants to abandon the duck and let nature take its course, has no hope of prevailing against a determined Sarah who quickly adopts the duck and names her Teapot.

I have read survival books in the past, but this is the first one that I truly believe might give me nightmares. There were a lot of mosquitoes, alligators, and of course, SNAKES! Every shape, size, and color of snake was represented in this book. (At least it seemed that way to me.) There was even a particularly disturbing scene where a Burmese python consumed an alligator. If this is ever made into a movie I will not be able to watch it.

Now I don't want you to think that I hated the book or regretted reading it. Despite my terror, I felt like Rorby conveyed a valuable message to those of us who struggle with our own internal phobias and insecurities. Throughout the story Sarah's fear of nature slowly turns into respect and admiration. The two teens realize that they need to learn from one another. They begin to eschew personal pride in favor of mutual dependence. As Sarah overcomes her fear of snakes, and of nature in general, she develops into a confident and strong young lady.  No longer does she need to seek out the constant approval of classmates. Sarah realizes that the obstacles in her life have indeed made her unique - but she is proud of accomplishments, and she has learned to appreciate her own distinctiveness.

That being said, I'm happy to let my experience with the Everglades end there. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll always be afraid of snakes. Getting over a phobia often means being exposed to it. I'm quite content to keep my phobia and stay away from all snake habitats.