刚放暑假时，我女儿的英语老师发了一个材料，是一首儿童歌谣，每人分一段，让大家暑假期间练习，然后开学后大家一起排演这个节目。

 

我女儿念的这部分是：

And now you must understand

Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,

He ate him up from head to toe,

Chewing the pieces nice and slow.

It took an hour to reach the feet,

Because there was so much to eat,

And when he finished, Pig, of course,

Felt absolutely no remorse.

 

我觉得这个故事怎么这么血腥啊。我不明白为什么她的老师（是个英格兰人）选择这么一首歌谣来给孩子读。

 

于是我仔细看看了整首歌谣，并且搜索了一下作者Roald Dahl，了解到他是挪威籍的英国杰出儿童文学作家（罗尔德•达尔，1916年9月13日—1990年11月23日）。好像他的作品大多包含黑色幽默、古怪的情节和可怕的暴力。很奇怪，儿童文学作品为什么是这样。

 

不过对于这首小歌谣，里面最主要的是这个Pig突然间思考起来的问题：

What was the reason for his birth?

Why was he placed upon this earth?

 

如果把这个问题的主体换成我们每个人，是不是也很难回答呢？似乎这只Pig很容易回答了。如果我孩子的英语老师是为了让孩子思考这个问题，似乎也太难为孩子了。有些人（也许是很多人）用一生可能都思考不明白的问题，孩子们怎么明白呢。

 

对于我女儿来说，她一点不觉得血腥啊难懂啊之类的。她的理解很简单：如果猪不吃了农夫，就会被杀掉做成猪肉，所以要吃掉农夫。我也没多说什么。我觉得这个世界还是让孩子自己去体会吧。

 

 

The Pig  by Roald Dahl

 

In England once there lived a big

And wonderfully clever pig.

To everybody it was plain

That Piggy had a massive brain.

He worked out sums inside his head,

There was no book he hadn't read.

He knew what made an airplane fly,

He knew how engines worked and why.

 

He knew all this, but in the end

One question drove him round the bend:

What was the reason for his birth?

Why was he placed upon this earth?

His giant brain went round and round.

Alas, no answer could be found.

 

Till suddenly one wondrous night.

All in a flash he saw the light.

He jumped up like a ballet dancer

And yelled, "By gum, I've got the answer!"

"They want my bacon slice by slice

"To sell at a tremendous price!

"They want my tender juicy chops

"To put in all the butcher's shops!

"The butcher's shop! The carving knife!

"That is the reason for my life!"

 

Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland,

A pail of pigswill in his hand,

And piggy with a mighty roar,

Bashes the farmer to the floor.

 

And now you must understand

Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,

He ate him up from head to toe,

Chewing the pieces nice and slow.

It took an hour to reach the feet,

Because there was so much to eat,

And when he finished, Pig, of course,

Felt absolutely no remorse.

 

Slowly he scratched his brainy head

And with a little smile he said,

"I had a fairly powerful hunch

"That he might have me for his lunch.

"And so, because I feared the worst,

"I thought I'd better eat him first."