声音记忆

　　检查结果发现，并不是感冒。

　　脑肿瘤，第四期。

　　这是医生告诉我的诊断结果。我最多只能活半年，但是没人能够保证一个星期后，我还能够活在世上。虽然医生提议我可以接受放射线治疗、抗癌剂治疗、进安宁病房等各种选择，但是我完全听不进去。

　　小时候，我曾经在暑假期间去游泳池。普通一声，跳进凉冰冰的蓝色游泳池。嘴里吐着泡泡，身体沉入水中。

　　“要先热身啊。”

　　我听到老妈说话的声音，但是，在水中听到的声音很模糊，听不清楚。如今，遗忘已久的“声音记忆”突然在耳边苏醒。

≪如果这世界猫消失了≫ 11-12页
川村元气 著　　王蕴洁 译
ISBN 978-986-5706-44-9

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A Plastic Baby Jesus

Rosca de Reyes
(three Kings men ring cake)

Dia de los Reyes (Three Kings Day), on 6 January, marks the arrival of the 'Three Wise Men' bearing gifts for baby Jesus. Rosca de Reyes is a crown shaped sweet bread decorated with jewel like fruit. Traditionally, a plastic baby Jesus is hidden in the dough before it is cooked. If you cut the piece with the doll, you must host the next festivity!

my abuela's table, P112
Daniella Germain
ISBN 978-1-742-70174-5

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Day of the Dead Bread

Pan de Muertos
(Day of the Dead bread)

2 November is the Day of the Dead. Souls of the departed return to join their families and friends in the land of the living. It is a joyous time, without tears which can make the return pathway slippery.

my abuela's table, P111
Daniella Germain
ISBN 978-1-742-70174-5

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Spicy Leg of Lamb

Pierna de borrego con especias
spicy leg of lamb

This traditional dish is known as 'Barbacoa'-barbecue Mexican style. It is traditionally cooked in a pit in the ground half a metre deep. The lamb is wrapped in banana leaves, covered in hot coals and left overnight. The following day, the meat is taken out, banana leaves removed and the meat is ready to eat.

my abuela's table, P59
Daniella Germain
ISBN 978-1-742-70174-5

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Little Fat Ones

Gorditas

'Gorditas' translates to literally mean 'little fat ones'. Traditionally made with lard, they are an indulgent to be enjoyed in moderation.

my abuela's table, P49
Daniella Germain
ISBN 978-1-742-70174-5

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Mole

Mole

Mole is a common offering to dead loved ones during Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) on 2 November. Mole has a complex and special flavor.

my abuela's table, P25
Daniella Germain
ISBN 978-1-742-70174-5

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很寂寞

有心事的人很寂寞，
因为他把自己封锁起来。

关心他的人也很寂寞，因为他无能为力，
只能痛心的在外面默默等待那人回来。


≪有熊真好≫ —— 白白与你相遇的每一天 80-81页
Darylhochi 著
ISBN 978-957-10-6995-1

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就像调味料一样

和那人的回忆就像调味料一样，
身边和他有关的事物
都因此顿时添加了新意义。

以前没留意过的，
现在每天都不自觉地留意到；
以前觉得平淡无奇的，
现在变得别具意义；
以前喜欢的，现在因为那人而变得更喜欢。

但是味道会随着关系和思念
变得时甜时酸、时苦时涩，
也因为这人的出现，
改变了原本添加的味道。


≪有熊真好≫ —— 白白与你相遇的每一天 72-73页
Darylhochi 著
ISBN 978-957-10-6995-1

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连吃东西也特别有滋味

生病时要深切记着当时辛苦的感受，
痊愈后便会更珍惜健康所带来的自由，
连吃东西也特别有滋味。


≪有熊真好≫ —— 白白与你相遇的每一天 48页
Darylhochi 著
ISBN 978-957-10-6995-1

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这样的晚上

天气冷了，人也累了，
这样的晚上，可以盖着被子，
躺在沙发上，感受着被子从冷变暖，
最后在这温暖的被窝里看看电视，
然后睡着，多幸福。


≪有熊真好≫ —— 白白与你相遇的每一天 42页
Darylhochi 著
ISBN 978-957-10-6995-1

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He wasn't Handsome at All

　　Ostra felt she had snapped like a willow stem. She turned from the village and lay on the clifftop on the warm breast of the earth, weeping, weeping. The day waned and the sky changed colour and still she wept. There Wolvas found her and pulled her roughly to her feet.

　　"Ostra," he said, "you have no family and no protection. Now surely you must take me as your husband."

　　Ostra wiped her eyes and looked at him. For the first time she saw that he wasn't handsome at all: that he had a nasty, hard mouth; that his eyes were like a dead fish's, and his muscly body was rather stringy and cold. So when a beautiful brown hare popped his head out of the undergrowth and started to say,

　　"He's wi..."

　　Ostra interrupted the creature,

　　"I know, I know!" she told the hare. "But I've got no more excuses!"

　　... ...

The White Hare, P24-26
by Nicola Davis
Illustration Anastasia Izlesou
ISBN 978-1-9108-6248-3

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The Big Silence of the Stars

　　Weaving pots was a winter job. In spring and summer willow stems loose their bendiness and become snappy and brittle. So, on winter evenings, after it was dark and her father was back from the sea, Ostra walked up the cliff to the marshy willow bed on the edge of the woods to cut the willow stems and weave them. She worked by the light of the moon or of a little rush lantern, yellow flamed and trailing the stink of animal fat. In the cold, in the wind, in the rain.

　　Ostra liked the work, because it was peaceful and solitary and gave her time to be quiet.

　　The rhythm of bending and binding the stems to make the big, open shape of the crab pt pleased her. Sometimes she sang quietly to herself, but more often she sat quietly listening to the sounds of the winter night, the screaming vixens, the owl hooting, the wolves howling and, above all the sound of Earth, to the big silence of the stars. Listening in the cold, winter silence is how she came to hear animals speaking to her.

The White Hare, P7-9
by Nicola Davis
Illustration Anastasia Izlesou
ISBN 978-1-9108-6248-3

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Doing and Un-doing and Doing Again

　　I realised, though I was on Earth, I had been living this past year as I had always lived. I was just thinking I could carry on, moving forward. But I was not me any more. I was a human, give or take. And humans are about change. This is how they survive, by doing and un-doing and doing again.

　　I had done some things I couldn't undo, but there were others I could amend. I had become a human by betraying rationality and obeying feeling. To stay me, I knew there would come a point when I would have to do the same again.

　　Time passed.

　　Squinting, I looked again to the sky.

　　The Earth's sun can look very much alone, yet it has relatives all across this galaxy, stars that were born in the exact same place, but which were now very far away from each other, lighting very different worlds.

　　I was like a sun.

　　I was a long way from where I started. And I have changed. Once I thought I could pass through time like a neutrino passes through matter, effortlessly and without stopping to think, because time would never run out.

The Humans, P288
Matt Haig
ISBN 978-0-85786-876-3

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Advice for a Human

Advice for a human

　　1. ... ...

　　2. Don't worry about your abilities. You have the ability to love. That is enough.

　　3. Be nice to other people. At the universal level, they are you.

　　... ...

　　7. Irony is fine, but not as fine as feeling.

　　8. ... ...

　　9. Sometimes, to be yourself you will have to forget yourself and become something else. Your character is not a fixed thing. You will sometimes have to move to keep up with it.

　　... ...

　　13. You shouldn't have been born. Your existence is as close to impossible as can be. To dismiss the impossible is to dismiss yourself.

　　14. Your live will have 25,0000 days in it. Make sure you remember some of them.

　　... ...

　　25. There is only one genre in fiction. The genre is called 'book'.

　　... ...

　　29. If there is a sunset, stop and look at it. Knowledge is finite. Wonder is infinite.

　　... ....

　　33. You are not the most intelligent creature in the universe. You are not even the most intelligent creature on your planet. Yhe tonal language in the song of a humpback whale displays more complexity than the entire works of Shakespeare. It is not a competition. Well, it is. But don't worry about it.

　　... ...

　　38. Walt Whitman was right about at least one thing. You will contradict yourself. You are large. You contain multitudes.

　　... ...

　　41. Your brain is open. Never let it be closed.

　　42. In a thousand years, if humans survive that long, everything you know will have been disapproved. And replaced by even bigger myths.

　　... ...

　　46. A paradox. The things you don't need to live - books, art, cinema, wine and so on - are things you need to live.

　　47. ... ...

　　48. No two moralities match. Accept different shapes, so long as they aren't sharp enough to hurt.

　　... ...

　　51. Alcohol in the evening is very enjoyable. Hangovers in the mornings are very unpleasant. At some point you have to choose: evenings, or mornings.

　　... ...

　　60. Obey your head. Obey your heart. Obey your gut. In fact, obey everything except commands.

　　61. One day, if you get into a position of power, tell people this: just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. There is a power and a beauty in unproved conjectures, unkissed lips and unpicked flowers.

　　... ...

　　65. Don't think you know. Know you think.

　　... ...

　　74. A quark is not the smallest thing. The wish you have on your death-bed - to have worked harder - that is the smallest thing. Because it won't be there.

　　75. Politeness is often fear. Kindness is always courage. But caring is what makes human. Care more, become more human.

　　76. In your mind, change the name of every day to Saturday. And change the name of work to play.

　　... ...

　　81. You can't find happiness looking for the meaning of life. Meaning is only the third important thing. It comes after loving and being.

　　82. If you think something is ugly, look harder. Ugliness is just a failure of seeing.

　　83. ... ...

　　84. Your are more than the sum of your particles. And that is quite a sum.

　　85. ... ...

　　86. To like something is to insult it. Love it or hate it. Be passionate. As Civilisation advances, so does indifference. It is a disease. Immunise yourself with art. And love.

　　... ...

　　90. But know this. Men are not from Mars. Women are not from Venus. Do not fall for categories. Everyone is everything. Every ingredient inside a star is inside you, and every personality that ever existed competes in the theatre of your mind for the main role.

　　... ...

　　94. You don't have to be an academic. You don't have to be anything. Don't force it. Feel your way, and don't stop feeling your way until something fits. Maybe nothing will. Maybe you are a road, not a destination. That is fine. Be a road. But make sure it's one with something to look at out of the window.

　　... ...

　　97. I love you. Remember that.

The Humans, P271-277
Matt Haig
ISBN 978-0-85786-876-3

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Penguin

　　Ben ignored Penguin.

　　Penguin ignored Ben.

　　So Ben fired Penguin into outer space ...

　　Penguin came back to Earth without a word.

Penguin
Polly Dunbar
ISBN 978-1-4063-7331-8

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True Love Had Its Name for A Reason

　　I briefly toyed with the idea that I should try to convince her that nothing I had told her was true. That we were more magical realism than science fiction, specifically that branch of literary fiction that comes complete with an unreliable narrator. That I wasn't really an alien. That I was a human who'd had a breakdown, and there was nothing extraterrestrial or extramarital about me. Gulliver might have known what he had seen, but Gulliver had a fragile mind. I could easily denied everything. A dog's health fluctuates. People fall off roofs and survive. After all, humans - especially adult ones - want to believe the most mundane truths possible. They need to, in order to stop their worldviews, and their sanity, from capsizing and plunging them into the vast ocean of incomprehensible.

　　But it seemed too disrespectful, somehow, and I couldn't do it. Lies were everywhere on this planet, but true love had its name for a reason. And if a narrator tells you it was just a dream, you want to tell him he has simply passed from one delusion into another one, and he could wake from this new reality at any time. You had to stay consistent to life's delusions. All you had was your perspective, so objective truth was meaningless. You has to choose a dream and stick with it. Everything else was a con. And once you had tasted truth and love in the same potent cocktail, there had to be no more tricks. But while I knew I couldn't correct this version of things with any integrity, living with it was hard.

The Humans, P263-264
Matt Haig
ISBN 978-0-85786-876-3

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Molecules Within The Beast

　　He sighed and shook his head. "No, I do not think that," he said, in a voice which was mine but deeper, somehow, and flatter. "I do not see a separation. I have lived with a human for only a few days, but I have seen violence and hypocrisy that runs through this species."

　　"Yes, but there is good in them. A lot of good."

　　"No. I don't see it. They can sit and watch dead human bodies on TV screens and feel nothing at all."

　　"That's how I saw it at first, but-"

　　"They can drive thirty miles every day and feel good about themselves for recycling a couple of empty jam jars. They can talk about peace being a good thing yet glorify war. They can despise the man who kills his wife in rage but worship the indifferent soldier who drops a bomb killing a hundred children."

　　"Yes, there is a bad logic here, I agree with you, yet I truly believe-"

　　He wasn't listening. He stood up now, state at me with determined eyes as he paced the room and delivered his speech. "They believe God is always on their side, even if their side is at odds with the rest of their species. They have no way of coming to terms with what are, biologically, the most import events that happen to them - procreation and death. They pretend to know that money can't buy happiness, yet they would choose money every time. They celebrate mediocrity at every available opportunity and love to see other's misfortune. They have lived on this planet for over a hundred thousand generations and yet they still have no idea about who they really are or how they should really live. In fact, they know less now than they once did."

　　"You're right, but don't you think there is something beautiful in these contradictions, something mysterious?"

　　"No. No, I do not. What I think is that their violence will has helped them dominate the world and 'civilize' it, but now there is nowhere left for them to go, and so the human world has turned in on itself. It is a monster that feats on its own hands. And still they do not see the monster, or if they do, they do not see that they are inside it, molecules within the beast."

　　... ...

The Humans, P248-249
Matt Haig
ISBN 978-0-85786-876-3

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A Hard Thing to Get It Right

　　She had stuff to give, but it was ungiven; it was locked away.

　　And I felt an incredible excitement at being able to witness the love reemerge inside her, because it was a total, prime-of-life love. The kind that could only be possible in someone who was going to die at some point in the future, and also someone who had lived enough to know that loving and being loved back was a hard thing to get right, but when you managed it, you could see forever.

　　Two mirrors, opposite and facing each other at perfectly parallel angles, viewing themselves through the other, the view as deep as infinity.

　　Yes, that was what love was for. (I may not have understood marriage, but I understood love, I was sure of it.) Love was a way to live forever in a single moment, and it was also a way to see yourself as you had never actually seen yourself, and made you realize - having done so - that this view was a more meaningful one than any of your previous self-perceptions and self depictions. Even though, the big joke was, indeed the very biggest joke in the universe was, that Isobel Martin believed I had always been a human called Andrew Martin who had been born 100 miles away in Sheffield, and not in fact 8,653,178,431 light years away.

The Humans, P208-209
Matt Haig
ISBN 978-0-85786-876-3

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Tug of War

　　Skittles and Neil raced around the classroom. They knocked over paints and scattered the books.

　　Skittles grabbed Miss Wing's green hat. Then Neil grabbed the other side.

　　Miss Wing shouted at the birds but they didn't listen, they just kept playing tug of war with her hat!

　　Polly looked at Ronita.

　　Ronita looked at Polly.

　　And they both started to laugh!

Polly and the Puffin, The New Friend, P52-53
Jenny Colgan
ISBN 978-1-5102-0090-6

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Not So Easy

　　Polly looked at Ronita. Ronita looked at Polly.

　　It's not so easy to make friends just like that. They didn't talk to each other for a little while.

　　"I hve dungarees," said Ronita finally.

　　"Oh," said Polly. "I have a bird. At home."

　　"I have a bird!" said Ronita.

　　"No you don't," said Polly. "I have a bird."

　　"Yes I DO!" Ronita raised her voice.

　　"No you DON"T!" Polly raised hers back.

　　... ...

Polly and the Puffin, The New Friend, P29-30
Jenny Colgan
ISBN 978-1-5102-0090-6

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