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VOA慢速英语2012 EXPLORATIONS - A Beloved Family Pet Dies. What Does a Mother Tell Her Children?

时间:2012-02-08 08:43:20

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EXPLORATIONS - A Beloved Family Pet Dies. What Does a Mother Tell Her Children?

MARIO RITTER: This is EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. I’m Mario Ritter.
What do you do when a family pet dies? How would you explain the death of a dog or cat to a young child? If you are an award-winning writer, you think words can help because they help you. So you search for a book that will help your children understand what has happened. When you are unable to find such a book, you decide to write one -- a book that tells the story of a girl who could not understand why her dog went away.
Recently, Christopher Cruise spoke1 with writer Barbara Walsh about her book “Sammy in the Sky.” He also spoke with artist Jamie Wyeth about paintings he produced for the book.
(MUSIC)
READER: "Daddy wrapped Sammy in a blanket, and we knelt by his side. I petted Sammy’s head and kissed his warm nose. ‘You’re the best hound dog in the whole wide world,’ I whispered. Sammy’s breathing grew slower and slower until it stopped. ‘He’s gone,’ Daddy said, his voice soft and strange. Mommy held me close as Daddy carried Sammy to the backwoods to bury him. ‘Good-bye, Sammy,’ I cried.”
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Barbara Walsh’s daughters were three and five years old when their pet dog died of cancer. Sammy the hound lived to be twelve years old. Nora and Emma had never known life without Sammy. He had been in the childless family before they were born. Sammy had been the child -- the family’s first dog. But he was not jealous or angry about the new babies when they arrived. And he was not threatened by their presence. He welcomed them with dog kisses and endless patience. He let the girls put pieces of clothing on him. They sometimes slept on top of him. They played with him every day.
So when Sammy died, the children missed him every hour of every day. Their mother said he had gone up into the sky. “When was Sammy coming back,” the girls asked. “Where did he go?”
Barbara Walsh has had a long career and great success as a newspaper reporter. She has won many journalism2 awards, including the most important one – The Pulitzer Prize. She valued words and writing, and newspapers and books. So she looked for a book that would help her daughters deal with their deep sadness about losing Sammy. But she was unable to find one. 
Yes, there were books about dealing3 with the death of a pet. But, Ms. Walsh says those books “avoided the tough questions.”
She says she “could not find anything that dealt with death honestly at a child’s level.” Her daughters were angry that Sammy could not come back. They kept asking questions about why he left and why he was no longer with them. She knew they needed help dealing with that anger.
Because she was a reporter, Miz Walsh started writing down Emma and Nora’s words as they dealt out loud with Sammy’s death. And she saw in those words a book.
BARBARA WALSH: “They kept saying things to me, like, you know, Emma, who loves Sammy, Sammy was her best buddy4, she was…’Can he come back?’ And, and you know, ‘Where did he go?’ And Nora, who was younger, and, you know, she would look up in the sky and say ‘Sammy you come down here.’ She’s like, ‘He’s bein’ a bad dog.’ She was scolding him, and then she’d say ‘If Daddy gets a really tall ladder maybe he can go get Sammy.’ And so while they spoke I wrote these things.”
For six years Barbara Walsh wrote and rewrote, and rewrote again. She read her words to groups in Maine - the state where she lives with her family. Veterinarians, teachers, parents and children all cried when they heard her read about Sammy’s death. And they loved the book, especially the children -- from the early versions to the final work. They said it was needed. It was real. Crying, they said, was OK. It was part of life.
(MUSIC)
Ms. Walsh says feeling sad about the death of a pet is “a natural, inevitable5 process.” She says “if you feel grief, you must have at one time felt love, and that love needs to be honored and remembered.”
But publishing companies did not want to publish her book. Their agents felt it was too sad. They said people would not buy it.
BARBARA WALSH: “The agents weren’t willing to take a chance on it. And I, I bet they’re sad they didn’t now.”
Even after the well-known artist Jamie Wyeth agreed to produce paintings for the book, publishers still rejected it. They said it was just too real.. But Barbara Walsh says she knew they were wrong about “Sammy in the Sky.”
BARBARA WALSH: “And I told my daughters this book will be in a bookstore one day. And I, I just refused to give up on it because everyone that read it was really moved by it. And yes it’s sad, but dogs die, people die, it’s part of life. We all have to deal with grief and move on and I just refused to give up on it. It’s okay to tell a story about a dog dying and its okay to cry and its okay to be real. You know, kids aren’t stupid – I mean, they know their pets and people die, so why are we trying to hide that from them?”
Jamie Wyeth made more than twenty paintings for the book. Mr. Wyeth is the son of painter Andrew Wyeth, and a grandson of the artist NC Wyeth. Like his father and grandfather, his work is known throughout the world. Like Barbara Walsh, Mr. Wyeth lives in Maine and is known for his love of dogs. He has said he spends more time with animals than with people. He told the Portland Press-Herald newspaper that “a dog’s death affects (him) much more than a person’s death.”
One day, Barbara Walsh placed a telephone call to Mr. Wyeth. He answered his phone, listened to her and said he would read what she had written to see if he had any interest in doing artwork for it. He says no to almost every writer who asks him to illustrate6 their book. But he told VOA that when he read “Sammy in The Sky,” he said yes. It was not soft and safe, he said, and it was powerful.
JAMIE WYETH: “It was very affecting. I mean, I just, when I first read it, it was like it floored, you know, I mean it obviously moved me but I thought it was handled in such a, a simple, ah, sensitive way that it, I felt it sort of unique. And uh, and so I thought, well gosh, let me just try and see what I can do, so that’s where it sort of began.”
Mr. Wyeth says he worked off and on for a few years on the paintings, hoping to capture the words and emotions of the book. He wanted to show every emotion, even sadness. And when the publisher asked him to make some of the paintings less dark, less sad, he said no. Children are not stupid, he told VOA. They know when something is sad. The dark painting stayed in the book. He dedicated7 the book to all of the dogs he has loved and lost.
Ms. Walsh says Jamie Wyeth’s paintings capture the special ties and unconditional8 love between a dog and children.
(MUSIC)
“Sammy in The Sky” is now in its third printing. Barbara Walsh found an agent who, she says, was honest and kind and who had no doubt that the book would sell.
Many stories have been written about the book. Ms. Walsh says tens of thousands of copies of “Sammy in The Sky” have been sold throughout the United States and in other countries, including Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and England. Hundreds of people come to hear her when she reads it.
BARBARA WALSH: “People are using it to read to their children when their dogs die. People are buying it in memory of their dogs. Schools and libraries have it. And, I told my daughters early on, I said ‘This book will help other kids.’ I couldn’t find a book that could help them with their grief and, and deal with it honestly. This book is helping9 children - and even adults I think - deal with the loss of their pet or even a person whom they love.”
Ms. Walsh says booksellers believe “Sammy in the Sky” is written for children aged10 four to eight. But she believes it is a book for children and adults of any age. She told VOA “any person … can relate to this book; it is about love and loss, death and grief, reconciliation11 and reckoning with heart-felt and tender emotions.”
Although Sammy’s death broke their hearts, Barbara, her husband Eric Conrad and her daughters recovered. And life, as it always does, as it always must, went on. But there was an emptiness, an emptiness that could only be filled by a dog. A year after Sammy died, the family rescued Jack12. And when we say rescue, we really mean it. Jack is a Tennessee coon hound. His former owners had severely13 beaten him, his mother and sister. They were left in the woods to die, dumped like trash.
After years of promises and love from Barbara and her family, Jack finally believes he will never again be hurt, or left to die. In Jack, the family now has a dear and loyal, trusting and protective friend. He is not a replacement14 for Sammy. No, that could never happen. But in Jack, as in Sammy, there is…a book. Barbara Walsh will write it through Jack’s eyes, eyes still holding fear but now, love and trust.
(MUSIC)
MARIO RITTER: This program was written by Christopher Cruise, who also read our report. Daisy Bracken read from the book. I’m Mario Ritter. You can see some of the pictures Jamie Wyeth painted for the “Sammy in the Sky” book at our website, voanews.cn.
And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and iTunes. And please join us again next week for more Explorations in VOA Special English.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
2 journalism kpZzu8     
n.新闻工作,报业
参考例句:
  • He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师,可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
  • He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。
3 dealing NvjzWP     
n.经商方法,待人态度
参考例句:
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
4 buddy 3xGz0E     
n.(美口)密友,伙伴
参考例句:
  • Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气,老兄。有什么麻烦吗?
  • Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了,你这家伙!
5 inevitable 5xcyq     
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的
参考例句:
  • Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
  • The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。
6 illustrate IaRxw     
v.举例说明,阐明;图解,加插图
参考例句:
  • The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
  • This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。
7 dedicated duHzy2     
adj.一心一意的;献身的;热诚的
参考例句:
  • He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
  • His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。
8 unconditional plcwS     
adj.无条件的,无限制的,绝对的
参考例句:
  • The victorious army demanded unconditional surrender.胜方要求敌人无条件投降。
  • My love for all my children is unconditional.我对自己所有孩子的爱都是无条件的。
9 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
10 aged 6zWzdI     
adj.年老的,陈年的
参考例句:
  • He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了,也老点了。
  • He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老,然而记忆力还好。
11 reconciliation DUhxh     
n.和解,和谐,一致
参考例句:
  • He was taken up with the reconciliation of husband and wife.他忙于做夫妻间的调解工作。
  • Their handshake appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation.他们的握手似乎是和解的表示。
12 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
13 severely SiCzmk     
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地
参考例句:
  • He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
  • He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。
14 replacement UVxxM     
n.取代,替换,交换;替代品,代用品
参考例句:
  • We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
  • They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

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