兒童文學
Children’s Literature

The center of the Earth is exceedingly hot.
相較於流行樂，長輩們比較喜歡民謠。

Elders prefer ballads than the pop songs.
這個計劃的優點超過了它的缺點。

Lora has seized the opportunity to acquire a raise.
Lora 把握住了爭取加薪的機會。

Parents usually cater to their children’s requests.
父母通常會滿足孩子的要求。

Humans always try to anticipate natural disasters in order to lower the damage.
為了降低損失，人類不斷嘗試預測天然災害。

After their son died in the war, the parents accepted the tribute from the country at the funeral.
當他們的兒子戰死後，他們接受了國家的致敬。

There are a lot of pirated editions of the new album.
這張新專輯有許多盜錄的版本。

The government decreed a law that wearing a mask in public is prohibited.
政府頒布了法令，在公共場合戴口罩是被禁止的。

Playing basketball is John’s favorite diversion.
打籃球是 John 最喜歡的消遣活動。

The public servant was condemned for taking bribes from the local enterprises.
這名公務員因收受當地公司的賄賂而被判刑。

Children’s Literature

Stories and poems aimed at children have an exceedingly long history: lullabies, for example, were sung in Roman times, and a few nursery games and rhymes are almost as ancient. Yet so far as written-down literature is concerned, while there were stories in print before 1700 that children often seized on when they had the chance, such as translations of Aesop’s fables, fairy-stories and popular ballads and romances, these were not aimed at young people in particular. Since the only genuinely child-oriented literature at this time would have been a few instructional works to help with reading and general knowledge, plus the odd Puritanical tract as an aid to morality, the only course for keen child readers was to read adult literature. This still occurs today, especially with adult thrillers or romances that include more exciting, graphic detail than is normally found in the literature for younger readers.

By the middle of the 18th century there were enough eager child readers, and enough parents glad to cater to this interest, for publishers to specialize in children’s books whose first aim was pleasure rather than education or morality. In Britain, a London merchant named Thomas Boreham produced Cajanus, The Swedish Giant in 1742, while the more famous John Newbery published A Little Pretty Pocket Book in 1744. Its contents, rhymes, stories, children’s games plus a free gift (‘A ball and a pincushion’). In many ways anticipated the similar lucky-dip contents of children’s annuals this century. It is a tribute to Newbery’s flair that he hit upon a winning formula quite so quickly, to be pirated almost immediately in America.

Such pleasing levity was not to last. Influenced by Rousseau, whose Emile (1762) decreed that all books for children save Robinson Crusoe were a dangerous diversion, contemporary critics saw to it that children’s literature should be instructive and uplifting. Prominent among such voices was Mrs. Sarah Trimmer, whose magazine The Guardian of Education (1802) carried the first regular reviews of children’s books. It was she who condemned fairy-tales for their violence and general absurdity; her own stories, Fabulous Histories (1786) described talking animals that were always models of sense and decorum.

So the moral story for children was always threatened from within, given the way children have of drawing out entertainment from the sternest moralist. But the greatest blow to the improving children’s book was to come from an unlikely source indeed: early 19th-century interest in folklore…