内容简介
"How about a story? Spin us a yarn."
Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned.
"Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!"
And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.
As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold--the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.
In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.
作者简介
Sharon Creech is the Newbery Medal-winning author of Walk Two Moons. Her other novels include The Wanderer, a Newbery Honor Book, Bloomability, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Chasing Redbird, and Pleasing The Ghost. She has also written two picture books, A Fine, Fine School and Fishing In The Air. After spending eighteen years teaching and writing in Europe, Sharon Creech and her husband have returned to the United States to live.
内页插图
精彩书评
Thirteen-year-old Sal Hiddle can't deal with all the upheaval in her life. Her mother, Sugar, is in Idaho, and although Sugar promised to return before the tulips bloomed, she hasn't come back. Instead, Mr. Hiddle has moved Sal from the farm she loves so much and has even taken up company with the unpleasantly named Mrs. Cadaver. Multilayered, the book tells the story of Sal's trip to Idaho with her grandparents; and as the car clatters along, Sal tells her grandparents the story of her friend Phoebe, who receives messages from a "lunatic" and who must cope with the disappearance of her mother. The novel is ambitious and successful on many fronts: the characters, even the adults, are fully realized; the story certainly keeps readers' interest; and the pacing is good throughout. But Creech's surprises--that Phoebe's mother has an illegitimate son and that Sugar is buried in Idaho, where she died after a bus accident--are obvious in the first case and contrived in the second. Sal knows her mother is dead; that Creech makes readers think otherwise seems a cheat, though one, it must be admitted, that may bother adults more than kids. Still, when Sal's on the road with her grandparents, spinning Phoebe's yarn and trying to untangle her own, this story sings.
--Ilene Cooper
"The book is packed with humor and affection and is an odyssey of unexpected twists and surprising conclusions."
-- 1995 Newbery Award Selection Committee.
精彩书摘
Chapter One
A Face at the Window
Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true. I have lived most of my thirteen years in Bybanks, Kentucky, which is not much more than a caboodle of houses roosting in a green spot alongside the Ohio River. just over a year ago, my father plucked me up like a weed and took me and all our belongings (no, that is not true--he did not bring the chestnut tree, the willow, the maple, the hayloft, or the swimming hole, which all belonged to me) and we drove three hundred miles straight north and stopped in front of a house in Euclid, Ohio.
"No trees?" I said. "This is where we're going to live?"
"No," my father said. "This is Margaret's house."
The front door of the house opened and a lady with wild red hair stood there. I looked up and down the street. The houses were all jammed together like a row of birdhouses. In front of each house was a tiny square of grass, and in front of that was a thin gray sidewalk running alongside a gray road.
"Where's the barn?" I asked. "The river? The swimming hole?"
"Oh, Sal," my father said. "Come on. There's Margaret." He waved to the lady at the door.
"We have to go back. I forgot something."
The lady with the wild red hair opened the door and came out onto the porch.
"In the back of my closet," I said, under the floorboards. I put something there, and I've got to have it."
"Don't be a goose. Come and see Margaret."
I did not want to see Margaret. I stood there, looking around, and that's when I saw the face pressed up against an upstairs window next door. It was a round girl's face, and it looked afraid. I didn't know it then, but that face belonged to Phoebe Winterbottom, a girl who had a powerful imagination, who would become my friend, and who would have many peculiar things happen to her.
Not long ago, when I was locked in a car with my grandparents for six days, I told them the story of Phoebe, and when I finished telling them--or maybe even as I was telling them--I realized that the story of Phoebe was like the plaster wall in our old house in Bybanks, Kentucky.
My father started chipping away at a plaster wall in the living room of our house in Bybanks shortly after my mother left us one April morning. Our house was an old farmhouse that my parents had been restoring, room by room. Each night as he waited to hear from my mother, he chipped away at that wall.
On the night that we got the bad news--that she was not returning--he pounded and pounded, on that wall with a chisel and a hammer. At two o'clock in the morning, he came up to my room. I was not asleep. He led me downstairs and showed me what he had found. Hidden behind the wall was a brick fireplace.
The reason that Phoebe's story reminds me of that plaster wall and the hidden fireplace is that beneath Phoebe's story was another one. Mine.
前言/序言
追风逐月:一位少女的跨越大陆之旅 (A Girl's Cross-Continental Journey) 作者: [此处留空,以便读者自行想象作者的风格] 出版年份: [此处留空] 装帧: 平装 适读年龄: 8岁及以上 --- 简介:一场关于寻找、关于遗失、关于成长的深刻旅程 《追风逐月:一位少女的跨越大陆之旅》讲述了一个关于勇气、家庭纽带和自我发现的动人故事。这不是一个关于印第安人或特定文化符号的故事,而是一个关于“离开”与“归来”的普世人性探讨。故事的主角是一位名叫莎拉(Sarah)的十二岁女孩,她正经历着生命中一个充满不确定性的时期——她的祖母,那位她最亲近、最理解她的人,突然搬离了熟悉的家园,远赴遥远的西海岸。 对于一个习惯了稳定的生活节奏和熟悉的风景的少女来说,这种突如其来的分离几乎是毁灭性的。莎拉的世界似乎因此倾斜了。她的父母试图用爱和理解来填补祖母留下的空白,但莎拉心中深处涌动着一种强烈的、近乎本能的冲动:她必须亲自去找到她的祖母,去了解她离开的原因,去确认那份无条件的爱是否依然存在。 启程:一个大胆的决定 故事的开篇,莎拉做出了一个大胆、甚至有些鲁莽的决定:她要独自踏上寻找祖母的旅程。但这不是一次说走就走的任性之举,而是经过深思熟虑的、充满仪式感的计划。她没有告诉父母她的全部意图,只是以一次“短途探险”的名义,收拾了她的背包——里面塞满了她认为在漫长旅途中必不可少的物品:几件换洗衣物、一本空白的笔记本、一些省吃俭用的零花钱,以及最重要的,一张她自己绘制的粗略地图。 她的旅程,与其说是一次地理上的移动,不如说是一场情感上的迁徙。她从她位于美国中西部宁静的家乡出发,目的地是遥远的太平洋沿岸,一个她从未踏足过的、充满未知和传说的土地。 沿途的风景与相遇 旅途的广阔性为故事提供了丰富的背景。莎拉的旅程穿梭于各种截然不同的美国风光之中:从一望无际的玉米地到荒凉的沙漠边缘,再到被连绵山脉切割出的峡谷地带。她选择了一种近乎古老的方式来旅行——搭乘长途巴士,偶尔借宿于提供帮助的陌生人家中。 在这趟旅程中,莎拉遇到的每一个人都像是被命运之手精心挑选出来,为她的成长添砖加瓦: 一位沉默寡言的卡车司机: 他教会了莎拉如何观察星空,以及如何在孤独中找到内心的平静。他虽然言语不多,但他的每一次善意和对女儿的思念,都让莎拉对“父爱”有了更深层次的理解。 一位热衷于植物学的退休教师: 她在旅途中偶然与莎拉同坐了一段路程,耐心地向莎拉解释了路边野花的生命力与适应性。通过这些植物,莎拉开始明白,真正的力量往往来自于适应环境和扎根于当下。 一个与她年纪相仿、正在经历家庭变故的男孩: 在一个拥挤的汽车旅馆里,他们分享了彼此的秘密和恐惧。这次短暂的友谊让莎拉意识到,她并不是唯一一个在生活中感到迷失的人。 这些短暂却深刻的相遇,逐渐磨平了莎拉对“未知”的恐惧,取而代之的是一种对人性的基本信任。她学会了如何倾听,如何提问,以及如何真诚地表达自己的需求。 内在的探索:笔记本的秘密 莎拉的笔记本是她旅程中不可或缺的伴侣。起初,她只在上面记录旅途中的见闻和支出。但随着时间的推移,笔记本逐渐演变成一个秘密的“心之容器”。她开始写信给祖母,虽然这些信永远不会被寄出。在这些信中,她倾诉了对祖母的思念、对父母的感激,也勇敢地面对了自己内心深处对“被抛弃”的恐惧。 她写下了她对“家”的重新定义:家不仅仅是一个物理地址,而是一系列珍贵记忆和情感连接的集合。在旅途的颠簸和不确定性中,莎拉开始理解,无论身体相隔多远,情感的联结是无法被切断的。 高潮与回归:旅程的真正目的 当莎拉终于到达那个遥远、气候宜人的西海岸小镇时,故事达到了它的高潮。她找到了祖母的住处,但结局并非是她想象中的团聚拥抱或激烈争吵。 祖母并没有“抛弃”她。恰恰相反,祖母的离开有着一个沉重而不得不遵从的原因,这个原因与她自身的健康和对家人的爱有关。她希望在最后的时光里,能够以一种更平静、更少干扰的方式生活,同时,她也希望莎拉能够通过自己的努力,找到面对困难的内在力量。 莎拉与祖母的相见是平静而充满泪水的。她们没有谈论太多细节,而是通过一个共享的、充满回忆的眼神完成了心灵的交流。祖母没有给她任何“答案”来解决她所有的问题,但她给了莎拉更宝贵的东西:对生活真相的接受,以及对未来的希望。 旅程的终点,成为了另一个起点。莎拉踏上了归途,但此时的她已经不再是那个需要紧紧抓住过去的小女孩了。她带着新的洞察力、更坚韧的内心,以及对生命循环的初步理解,回到了她的家庭。她明白了,即使在最深的失落中,爱也会以新的形式继续存在。 《追风逐月:一位少女的跨越大陆之旅》是一部关于成长的颂歌,它告诉年轻的读者:有时候,你需要走得足够远,才能真正找到回家的路,而这条路,最终指向的都是我们自己的内心。它探讨了家庭的意义、友谊的力量,以及即使在最艰难的时刻,生活也依然会展现出其令人惊叹的美丽和韧性。