美国国家公共电台 NPR An Author Addresses A Young Santa Skeptic ?Her Daughter

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

There's a big green tinsel warning label across the cover of Martha Brockenbrough's new book "Love, Santa." It's a series of letters between a mother and a daughter. A little girl named Lucy begins to write Santa Claus when she's 7. Martha Brockenbrough is in our studios at NPR West. Could I get you to read the first three lines of that letter?

MARTHA BROCKENBROUGH: (Reading) Dear Santa, how do you get down all the chimneys? What happens when people live in homes without fireplaces¹? Why does your handwriting look like my mom's?

SIMON: "Love, Santa" is illustrated² by Lee White. Martha Brockenbrough, thanks so much for joining us.

BROCKENBROUGH: Thanks for having me.

SIMON: Why did you write this book?

BROCKENBROUGH: I wrote this book for my daughter. And it actually wasn't ever meant to be a book at all. It was a letter to her. When she was in third grade, we were keeping a letter journal back and forth³. She had dyslexia, and it was one of the ways that I was teaching her how to read and write.

And so she would bring home a letter from school, and I would write her a reply. And at one point, she asked me a really good question about Santa Claus. And this became my reply. And other parents found it really helpful. And so I posted it on a blog. And then The New York Times picked up a version on their online parenting section. And it went all around the world. And I never thought it would be a book. It was simply my answer to my daughter's excellent question.

And over a period of years, I kept thinking about it and shared it with my editor at Scholastic⁴. And he thought there was a book in there. And it was really when I came upon the idea of writing it as a series of letters between a mom and a growing girl that, suddenly, its shape as a book took form.

SIMON: I have a question I'd like to pass along from our 11-year-old.

BROCKENBROUGH: Yes.

SIMON: All these letters - Santa's not on email, Twitter?

BROCKENBROUGH: (Laughter) You know, Santa is really wise and recognizes that social media, while it is a fun way to connect, can sometimes distract⁵ us from our real work. And the work of Santa is to spread love and joy and not just tweets.

SIMON: You've been preparing for this haven't you?

(LAUGHTER)

SIMON: Of course, we want every member of the family to be able to listen to this interview. And I'm sure you catch my drift. Parents want their children to grow and learn everything about the world - except maybe a couple things.

BROCKENBROUGH: Well, I think, you know, what all parents want is for our kids to grow up loving the world, feeling connected to each other. And there's lots of ways that we can teach children how, you know, there's such a thing as magic and wonder in the world. There's lots of ways we can build the capacity for faith and the power to imagine magic and a wonderful, beautiful dark time. You know, winter is the coldest, darkest time of the year. And how do we light that up?

SIMON: Casting back to when Lucy first wrote you that letter, what did you write back?

BROCKENBROUGH: Well, I wrote back something that is rather similar to what you read in the book. And what I explained to her was something that I had been thinking about for some time. You know, all along, we think about our kids and what we want to tell them at important milestones⁶. This is one that I had actually been thinking about starting when I was 17 years old. I had a really wonderful English teacher, and he gave the graduation speech. And he concluded his speech with a two-word bit of advice. Have faith. In what? That's for you to decide.

And so I spent my late adolescence⁷ and my early adulthood⁸ deciding what it was that I was going to have faith in. And so I told my daughter to have faith in herself, in her family and her friends and even in things that we can't see or touch. And I told her, you know, here I'm talking about love, which is going to light your life from the inside out, even when it's cold and dark. And this is something that I truly believe - is that we can light each other's lives and that this source of magic that so enraptures⁹ us around this time of year - well, it's us.

SIMON: Martha Brockenbrough's new book, "Love, Santa."

Thanks so much, and happy holidays.

BROCKENBROUGH: Thanks, Scott. Same to you.

1 fireplaces   

壁炉( fireplace的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The shop was an old converted house with many large, disused fireplaces and tall, narrow chimneys. 那是一座老式的、经过改造的房子，店里有许多废置不用的大壁炉和又高又窄的烟囱。 来自新概念英语第三册
• When the central- heating was installed, the fireplaces were walled up. 安装暖气设备之后，便把壁炉封闭起来了。

2 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

3 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

4 scholastic   

adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的

参考例句：

• There was a careful avoidance of the sensitive topic in the scholastic circles.学术界小心地避开那个敏感的话题。
• This would do harm to students' scholastic performance in the long run.这将对学生未来的学习成绩有害。

5 distract   

vt.分散注意力，转移注意力，使分心

参考例句：

• Don't distract my attention.不要分散我的注意力。
• It was all a ploy to distract attention from his real aims.那纯粹是障眼法,用以分散人们对他真正意图的注意力。

6 milestones   

n.重要事件( milestone的名词复数 )；重要阶段；转折点；里程碑

参考例句：

• Several important milestones in foreign policy have been passed by this Congress and they can be chalked up as major accomplishments. 这次代表大会通过了对外政策中几起划时代的事件，并且它们可作为主要成就记录下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dale: I really envy your milestones over the last few years, Don. 我真的很羡慕你在过去几年中所建立的丰功伟绩。 来自互联网

7 adolescence   

n.青春期，青少年

参考例句：

• Adolescence is the process of going from childhood to maturity.青春期是从少年到成年的过渡期。
• The film is about the trials and tribulations of adolescence.这部电影讲述了青春期的麻烦和苦恼。

8 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

9 enraptures   

v.使狂喜( enrapture的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：