杰奎琳·伍德森想让孩子们知道足球的美丽和危险

杰奎琳·伍德森想让孩子们知道足球的美丽和危险

Many of Jacqueline Woodson's books tackle serious issues in a way that's accessible for kids: Foster care, classism, intolerance.

杰奎琳·伍德森的许多书都以孩子们也能理解的方式来处理一些严肃的问题:寄养、阶级主义、偏狭。

Her latest book does that, too. It's called Before the Ever After and it's written in the voice of a 12-year-old boy whose father is a professional football player, a big star both on TV and to the neighborhood kids. But his father is also suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the degenerative brain disease that's been diagnosed in many collision-sport athletes.

她最近的一本书也是如此。这本书的名字叫《从此以后》，作者是一个12岁的男孩，他的父亲是一名职业足球运动员，是电视明星，也是社区里孩子们的偶像。但他的父亲也患有慢性创伤性脑病(CTE)，这种退行性脑疾病在许多碰撞运动运动员身上都被诊断出来。

First we get to know his dad. How he loves playing football. How he loves his family. And how when his son and a group of his young friends pile laughingly on his back, he shakes them off "like feathers."

首先我们了解他的爸爸。他多么喜欢踢足球。他多么爱他的家人。当他的儿子和一群年轻的朋友在他背上笑得团团转时，他又如何“像羽毛一样”把他们甩掉。

That's Jacqueline Woodson's lovely writing. I asked how that description came to her.

这是杰奎琳·伍德森优美的笔法。我问她是怎么想到这些的。

"A lot of times it's really visual for me as I'm writing it," she says. "What would it look like to have these little boys climbing on this dad and they think they're, tackling him and he just rises up and shakes them off, you know? Does he shake them off like marbles? Does he shake them off like stones? It's like no, he shakes them off like feathers cause they're really not tackling him at all.

“很多时候，当我在写的时候，它真的是我的视觉，”她说。“如果这些小男孩爬到这位父亲身上，他们以为自己是在对付他，他就会站起来甩掉他们，你知道吗?”他会像弹珠一样抖落他们吗?他会像石头一样抖落他们吗?不，他会像抖羽毛一样抖掉他们，因为他们根本就没有对付他。

And it is about, for me, just rewriting and rereading and listening to how it sounds out loud to get to the images that are in my head. And it's almost like I'm trying to draw the picture with the words — the pictures that I see in my head, I can't draw, but I can do it with words."

对我来说，就是一遍一遍写，一遍一遍读，听它的声音，来得到我脑海里的图像。这就像是我试着用文字来画一幅画，我在脑海中看到的图画，我画不出来，但我可以用文字来画。”

On playing with words

关于玩文字游戏

I think, you know, trying to get to the essence of what I'm trying to say without overwriting — it's so easy to add a bunch of adjectives, or say it: he's 223 pounds, he's this tall, you know, he has these broad shoulders. And for me, that doesn't paint an image that's going to eventually lead to having deep empathy for this person.

我想，你知道的，我想在不加赘述的情况下理解我要说的话的本质——添加一堆形容词很容易，或者说：他223磅，他这么高，你知道，他有这么宽的肩膀。对我来说，这并没有描绘出一个最终会让我对这个人产生深切共鸣的形象。

On choosing this topic for a kids' book

关于为一本儿童读物选择这个主题

I think one of the things I'm always concerned with as a writer is telling the truth. And I think a lot of times people don't tell the truth about about the trauma that contact sports can play on the body. We see the glory, but we don't see the damage that families sometimes experience, the damage that, you know, sons of dads experience, and dads themselves.

我认为作为一名作家，我一直关心的一件事就是讲真话。我认为很多时候人们并没有说出关于接触性运动对身体造成创伤的事实。我们看见了荣耀，但我们没有看到家庭有时经历的伤害，你知道的，父亲之子经历的伤害，以及父亲自己(经历的伤害)。

On whether the book is advising kids to stay away from football

关于这本书是否建议孩子们远离足球

It's a fine line when you're a writer, right? Of course, people who write young people's literature are subversive in some way. We are writing the narrative. And at the same time a book can't be didactic. Because you lose the reader right away.

当你是一个作家的时候，这是一个微妙的界限，对吗?当然，写年轻人文学的人在某种程度上是具有颠覆性的。我们在写故事。同时，一本书也不能是说教的。因为你马上就失去了读者。

So I never say I write to teach or to give advice, but I think in Before the Ever After, I want young people to have the whole story, you know, I want them to know the beauty of the sport. It is a beautiful sport. I want them to know the history of the sport, that it actually started with a pigskin bladder. And I want them to know the damaging impact of the sport. So it isn't me just trying to say this one-sided thing, don't play football. I want to say, know what this means.

所以我从来没有说过我写信是为了教书或是给别人建议，但我想在《从此以后》这本书里，我想让年轻人了解整个故事，你知道，我希望他们知道这项运动的美妙之处。这是一项美丽的运动。我想让他们知道这项运动的历史，它实际上是从猪皮膀胱开始的。我想让他们知道这项运动的破坏性影响。所以这不是我想说的单方面的事情，不要踢足球。我想说，要知道(踢足球)这意味着什么。