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Most of the fun of Halloween is in the planning: choosing a costume, negotiating accessories (“But Dad, a real scythe would look so much scarier!”), decorating the house, dreaming about how much candy you could possibly amass, and where to hide it from your parents. It’s also, perhaps surprisingly, a fine time for poetry. For children who are squeamish about verse, poems about dark magic, graves, goblins and monsters are — no disrespect intended — a far cry from “Now We Are Six”: unabashedly fun, unsentimental and occasionally wicked.
by the bunch. I ate six today at lunch. I’m a ghoul, that’s what I do. Don’t ask me home or I’ll eat you! 我一堆堆地 吃成年人。 我今天午餐 吃了六个人。 我是食尸鬼， 这是我该做的事。 不要问我家在哪儿， 不然我会吃了你！ The collection, which contains fifteen poems, ends on a comforting note: a child thinks of all the spooky things abroad on Halloween night and concludes, “But from the covers / I poke my head. / They won’t get me. / I’m safe in bed!” “Trick-or-Treat” is fun to read aloud but accessible and appropriate for the youngest readers in the family; spooky enough to whet their appetites for the eve, but not so frightening they’ll hide in the closet when the doorbell starts ringing. 这本书里有15首诗，结尾处有个安慰人的注释：一个小孩想到万圣节晚上外面所有可怕的事情，得出结论：“但是我从书后面 / 伸出我的头。/他们抓不住我。/我在床上很安全！”大声朗读《不给糖就捣乱》很有趣，连家里最小的孩子也能听懂，而且读给他/她听没有不妥之处。它够可怕，能引起孩子们对万圣节前夜的向往，但是没有可怕到门铃响起的时候，他们躲在衣橱里不敢出来。 Flatulence, thumb sucking, nose picking, scattered body parts, saliva, spittle: parents may be put off by the gross humor in “Your Skeleton Is Showing,” but kids will revel in it; and underneath the vulgarity — and not even six feet under — Cyrus’s verses are good-humored and clever. Take “Lulu Kaduba”: 放屁，吮拇指，抠鼻子，把肢体到处乱扔，流口水，吐唾沫：父母们可能不喜欢《你的骨骼正在显形》中粗俗的幽默，但是孩子们十分喜欢。赛勒斯的诗歌表面粗俗，实际上幽默、机智。比如下面这首《露露·卡杜巴》(Lulu Kaduba)： Lulu Kaduba was tuning her tuba the morning the meteor hit. It flattened her head. She blew a loud Blatt! The bandleader said: “Kaduba, you’re flat.” But nobody there saw the humor in that, And soon he was forced to quit. When meteors land in the midst of a band, It’s better to button your wit. 流星坠落的早上 露露·卡杜巴正在吹大号 流星砸平了她的头。她大声吹了一个平音！ 乐队指挥说：“卡杜巴，你的音调太低了。” 但是没人听出其中的幽默， 很快她不得不退出了。 当流星坠落在乐队中间的时候， 你最好放聪明点。 The 28 poems are framed, at the book’s beginning and end, with a story in verse about a boy and the very cute ghost dog he finds at the graveyard. The pair appear on each of Scrambly’s spreads, adding a sweet element to the more grotesque scenes of, for example, a desiccated gym teacher arising from his coffin, a granny-type hugged to death by an anaconda, and a boy choking on his own elbow. Scrambly’s pen-and-ink style has a little bit of R. Crumb to it, mixed with minute amounts of Edward Gorey and Shel Silverstein. It’s well suited to the Halloween theme — as is the typeface chosen by the book’s designer, which looks like the sort of thing you’d see on old gravestones. All in all, “Your Skeleton Is Showing” is a well-produced volume with witty verses and pictures that kids should enjoy well past New Year. 这本书共有28首诗，在书的开头和结尾有一个用韵文写成的故事，讲的是一个小男孩和他在墓地捡来的一只非常可爱的幽灵狗。斯克莱姆伯利的每一页画中都有他们的身影，给那些怪异的场景增添一点甜蜜的色彩，比如一个干枯的体育老师从棺材中起身，一个老奶奶样的人被蟒蛇缠死，一个小男孩在吃自己的肘子时被噎住。斯克莱姆伯利的钢笔画风格的插画有点像R·克拉姆(R. Crumb)，也有点像爱德华·戈里(Edward Gorey)和谢尔·希尔弗斯坦(Shel Silverstein)。它非常适合万圣节的主题，图书设计者选择的字体也是如此，很像你在老墓碑上看到的那种字体。总之，《你的骨骼正在显形》是一本制作精良的书，里面有诙谐的诗歌和图画，小孩子们能一直开心地读到新年过后。 本文最初发表于2013年10月9日。 翻译：王艳 |
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