A Little Boy Lost(中译《马丁的流浪:一个丢失的小男孩》)是英国作家威廉·亨利·赫德逊(1841-1922)的小说,1905年在英国首次出版后美国版、日文版等相继问世,距今108年已再版27次被全球约30个国家的图书馆典藏,媲美《夏洛的网》、《小王子》等经典著作,故事情节直抵内心深处。
The story of Captain Kidd's life and death told from the perspective of his cat, McDermot. The tale is rather a sad one with Kidd being betrayed by everyone he believed he could trust.
Poor Captain Kidd - he was set up. In this telling of the story by McDermot the cat, Kidd is a likable guffin who trusts all the wrong people and end up at Tyburn with a rope around his neck as a result. The good news in this sad story is that McDermot lives happily after. Lawson's pen and ink illustrations are marvelous. As a child I used to stare entranced at the color cover which showed McDermot's pierced ear with its ruby ring. Today I look instead at Moko and Koko, the African innkeepers, as they defend McDermot from an unscrupulous showman and I wince.
It took awhile to read, only because I was reading it to the boys as our night time book, and life got very busy.
I don’t know that the kids understood half of what was going on, but it was fun for me to learn more about Captain Kidd, at least from a cat’s perspective. We took a trip to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, and discovered they have a small display of relics from a sunken ship believed to be Captain Kidd’s - I felt more knowledgeable having been reading this book.
This is not as pleasant a read as Mr. Lawson's two other animal-perspective biographies but still remains quite a fun read-aloud story with the family. The vocabulary is expansive!
I found this book in middle school. Bought it from the school library for $.25. I've read it so many times and am still able to get lost in the adventure. If you love books such as Ben & Me, you'll adore this amazing book. It brings back so many childhood memories for me.