Host: Move over, Harry Potter. Step aside, Bridge to Terabithia注1. There’s a new set of titles dominating the bestseller list for kids’ chapter books, and there is nothing fantasy about these. It’s the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, written and drawn by Jeff Kinney. These are the journals of Greg Heffley, detailing his 1)trials as a 2)scrawny kid making the life-changing transition from elementary to middle school.
Author Jeff Kinney joins me now. They don’t look like normal kids’ chapter books. They’re like copies of the main character’s diary.
Kinney: Right. I actually got the idea from being a failed cartoonist, actually. I really wanted to be a newspaper 3)strip cartoonist, and I found myself playing far too many video games, so I started keeping a journal to kind of shame myself into writing my comic strips. But as I was writing a journal, I was doing these little 4)doodles in the 5)margins, and I thought that’s a pretty appealing 6)format.
Host: The story is told from the point of view of Greg Heffley. He’s the main character. He’s the wimpy kid. This is his diary. Describe Greg for us.
Kinney: I actually think Greg is a bit morally 7)bankrupt. I think he’s…he’s 8)petty. He’s…he’s a little bit 9)wicked. He’s 10)put-upon, but he also treats the people underneath him a little bit badly. But I think that Greg’s just kind of an average kid. What I like about the book is that by doing it as a diary or a journal, there’s no adult around to correct Greg.
Host: Do you think that’s why kids 11)identify with Greg?
Kinney: I think so and I hope so. I hope that kids can recognize that Greg doesn’t do the right thing. That’s something that I worried about when releasing this to a kid audience, because I actually wrote it for adults. I was trying to write a book that was 12)nostalgic, like The Wonder Years or A Christmas Story注2, and instead it’s going right to the kids, which is really interesting for me.
Host: It’s really an important time for kids – the transformation from elementary school to middle school. And Greg is struggling with how not to be a kid anymore – doesn’t want to be elementary school, he wants to be cool like middle school. He’s in a lot of 13)turmoil.
Kinney: Yes, he is. It’s true. I think that seventh and eighth grade – it really is the toughest time for a kid, because you haven’t quite grown into your body yet. And where I grew up, they had 14)junior high which was like seventh and eighth grade together, and I...
Host: That’s what I went to, yeah.
Kinney: And I always thought of it as they were 15)segregating you from the general population. Like, “What do we do with these people? We’ll just put them over here.” And…and you really did have some kids who were twice the size of other kids, like, 16)literally twice the size. And so I just thought that that was a great setting. And I think if we as adults were put back into our seventh-and-eighth-grade bodies and…
Host: Oh God! No!
Kinney: …and put into those situations that we wouldn’t act with any more 17)maturity. You know, we would all 18)revert to…to the behaviors that we had at that age.
主持人:《哈利·波特》让让位。《通向特拉比西亚的桥》靠边站吧。如今称霸儿童读物畅销书榜的是一套新作,书中不带任何幻想情节。它就是《小屁孩日记》系列,由
杰夫·金尼撰写并绘制插画。这是格雷· 郝夫利的日记,详细记录了这个瘦巴巴的孩子在“小升中”这一人生转变过程中遇到的种种麻烦。
作者杰夫·金尼就在我身边。它们看起来不像平常的儿童读物,更像是主角的日记。
金尼:不错。实际上,我的灵感源于自己没能成为漫画家的那段经历。我渴望成为给报纸供稿的连环漫画家,可是我发现自己过于沉迷电脑游戏,于是开始写日志,想让自己感到羞愧,从而激励自己创作连环画。在写日志的时候,我总会在空白处信手涂鸦。(后来)我觉得这个形式还挺吸引人的。
主持人:这些故事都是以格雷·郝夫利的视角来讲述。他是故事的主人公。他就是一个小屁孩。这是他的日记。给我们描述一下格雷其人吧。
金尼:实际上,我认为格雷有点缺德。我认为……他很卑鄙。
他……有时会使坏。他经常被人占便宜,却对境况不如自己的人不太友善。不过,我认为格雷只是一个普通的孩子。通过日记或日志这种形式,书中没有成年人纠正格雷的错误,我很喜欢这一点。
主持人:你认为这就是孩子们感同身受的原因吗?
金尼:我认为是这样的,也希望如此。我希望孩子们能意识到格雷的所作所为是不正确的。这也正是我向儿童读者群推出这本书时担心的问题,因为它原本是写给成年人看的。我本来想写一本有点怀旧感的书,就像《纯真年代》或《圣诞故事》那样;可它后来成了儿童读物,真是有趣极了。
主持人:从小学升上中学,这对孩子们来说确实是一个重要时期。格雷正纠结于怎样才能不再像个小孩——他不希望自己老是小学生的样子,希望能像中学生那么酷,混乱极了。
金尼:是的,没错,就是这样。我认为七年级和八年级——对于一个孩子来说,这确实是最艰难的时期,因为你的身体还没发育成熟。我家那边设了初中,相当于将七八年级合在一起,而我……
主持人:我的学校也是这样,是的。
金尼:我总是觉得这样做是为了将你和一般人隔离开来,就像是:“我们该拿这帮人怎么办好呢?就把他们搁在这里吧。”而……有些孩子的个头和其他孩子比起来确实一个顶俩,足足两个人那么壮。所以我觉得这是一个不错的故事背景。如果让我们成年人回到七八年级的身体,而且……
主持人:天啊!不要!
金尼:……设身处地来说,我们也不会成熟到哪里去。你知道,我们都会退回到……我们都会重复那个年龄做过的事情。
注1:《通向特拉比西亚的桥》为美国小说家凯瑟琳·佩特森(Katherine Paterson)所作,荣获全世界最权威的儿童文学奖——纽伯瑞奖(Newbery Medal),2007年改编为魔幻电影《仙境之桥》。
注2:《纯真年代》是美国上世纪80年代家喻户晓的经典电视剧,讲述一个小男孩的成长经历,获得了当年艾美奖最佳导演和剧本,以及金球奖最佳剧集。电影《圣诞故事》于1983年上映,从孩子的角度看待上世纪40年代美国中产阶级的生活。
