The Trumpet of the Swan
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品牌: E. B. White
基本信息·出版社：William Morrow
·页码：272 页
·出版日期：2000年
·ISBN：0064408671
·条形码：9780064408677
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
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内容简介Swan Song
Like the rest of his family, Louis is a trumpeter swan. But unlike his four brothers and sisters, Louis can't trumpet joyfully. In fact, he can't even make a sound. And since he can't trumpet his love, the beautiful swan Serena pays absolutely no attention to him.
Louis tries everything he can think of to win Serena's affection--he even goes to school to learn to read and write. But nothing seems to work. Then his father steals him a real brass trumpet. Is a musical instrument the key to winning Louis his love?
作者简介E.B. White, the author of twenty books of prose and poetry, was awarded the 1970 Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his children’s books,Stuart LittleandCharlotte’s Web.This award is now given every three years "to an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have, over a period of years, make a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children." The year 1970 also marked the publication of Mr. White’s third book for children,The Trumpet of the Swan,honored by The International Board on Books for Young People as an outstanding example of literature with international importance. In 1973, it received the Sequoyah Award (Oklahoma) and the William Allen White Award (Kansas), voted by the school children of those states as their "favorite book" of the year.
Born in Mount Vernon, New York, Mr. White attended public schools there. He was graduated from Cornell University in 1921, worked in New York for a year, then traveled about. After five or six years of trying many sorts of jobs, he joined the staff ofThe New Yorkermagazine, then in its infancy. The connection proved a happy one and resulted in a steady output of satirical sketches, poems, essays, and editorials. His essays have also appeared inHarper’s Magazine,and his books includeOne Man’s Meat, The Second Tree from the Corner, Letters of E.B. White, The Essays of E.B. WhiteandPoems and Sketches of E.B. White.
In 1938 Mr. White moved to the country. On his farm in Maine he kept animals, and some of these creatures got into his stories and books. Mr. White said he found writing difficult and bad for one’s disposition, but he kept at it. He beganStuart Littlein the hope of amusing a six-year-old niece of his, but before he finished it, she had grown up.
For his total contribution to American letters, Mr. White was awarded the 1971 National Medal for Literature. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy named Mr. White as one of thirty-one Americans to receive the Presidential Medal for Freedom. Mr. White also received the National Institute of Arts and Letters’ Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism, and in 1973 the members of the Institute elected him to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a society of fifty members. He also received honorary degrees from seven colleges and universities. Mr. White died on October 1, 1985.
编辑推荐Review
"The Trumpet of the Swan glows with the primal ecstasies of space and flight, of night and day, of nurturing and maturing, of courtship and art." - John Updike, The New York Times"
A swan with a speech defect. . . ? But (one may counter) "When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son was born, everyone noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse." So he was, in the first sentence, while Louis the Swan's peculiar problem comes to light slowly in the Canadian wilderness where Sam Beaver and his father are camping, the better to fish (Mr. Beaver) and explore (Sam). He exults in watching wild creatures in wild places - now the two trumpeter swans and their nest, then the fifth cygnet who, unable to beep, takes hold of his shoelace and gives it a pull, "like a greeting." Meanwhile the long-winded father swan, the cob, and his commonsensical wife grow concerned about Louis' handicap (if he can't trumpet how will he attract a mate?) and Louis, at the family's winter base in Montana, determines to "develop myself along other lines": he will seek out Sam and learn to read and write. Which done - in Mrs. Hammerbottom's first grade - he returns with slate and chalk, extends an eager "Hi, there," and draws a blank; nor does Serena, his chosen one, respond to his desperate "I love you." Now the cob, who's considered it, will have to go to Billings and get Louis a trumpet. It is this theft, and the need to make restitution (they are "by nature law-abiding"), that starts Louis on his remarkable career, first, coached by Sam, as Camp Kookooskoos' official trumpeter (and emergency life-saver), then as accompanist for the Swan Boats in Boston's Public Garden (where "There's a Small Hotel," the Ritz Carlton), finally as top attraction at a Philadelphia night club. Bird Lake in the Zoo offers temporary refuge, and there Serena blows in (literally), to be awakened with "Beau - ti - ful dream - er. . . " and won forever. At last Louis, a rich bird, can return home; his father, boasting manfully, can redeem the family honor; and the storekeeper, overcompensated, can only wonder. . . while Serena and Louis content themselves with annual sorties to the scenes of his triumphs. The start is a jolt, and subsequently there are breaks (Louis has had no prior exposure to the written word) and some big accidents - especially Serena's abrupt reappearance. However, when Louis raises his trumpet - to serenade the skeptical hotel clerk, for instance - or Mr. White pinions human foibles - "Kookooskoos" because "a boy's camp should have a peculiar name" - reservations have a way of evaporating. (Kirkus Reviews)