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Love You Forever

Love You Forever

Author/Illustrator: Robert Munsch / SheilaMcGraw

Amazon.comReview:
The mother sings to her sleeping baby: "I'll love you forever / I'll loveyou for always / As long as I'm living / My baby you'll be." She stillsings the same song when her baby has turned into a fractious 2-year-old, aslovenly 9-year-old, and then a raucous teen. So far so ordinary--but this isone persistent lady. When her son grows up and leaves home, she takes todriving across town with a ladder on the car roof, climbing through her grownson's window, and rocking the sleeping man in the same way. Then, inevitably,the day comes when she's too old and sick to hold him, and the roles are atlast reversed. Each stage is illustrated by one of Sheila McGraw's comic andyet poignant pastels.

這是我最愛的一本書之一，喜歡作者Robert Munsch精練卻溫暖的文字，喜歡繪者輕柔的水彩畫風，喜歡故事中母親在孩子不同階段的付出與愛，更喜歡那首溫暖而催人熱淚的歌。

當然故事裡，母親在孩子長大成人搬離開家後，仍然開車搬著梯子爬進他的房間去擁抱他這個情節似乎有點「太超過」，不過資淺媽媽我懂作者想表達的：無論孩子年紀多大，無論孩子身處何地，他們永遠都是母親心中最愛的小寶貝。生命是不斷的輪迴，新生命的誕生，父母親的老去，其實都在你我身邊不斷上演，唯一不會逝去的，是存在彼此心中的愛。

母親節正是說這個故事的最佳時機。母親節的這天，我放棄在家翹腳捻鬍鬚（最好是）的大好機會，仍然千里迢迢到圖書館值班當志工，就是為了想要分享這個好故事。

現場的八個孩子分別是七到十二歲之間（我的兩歲十個月兒子臭小鴻是去亂的，不算），他們對故事的接受度與回饋比我預期的好很多。看到小嬰兒的調皮搗蛋和九歲男孩的叛逆，他們會心一笑，兩對兄弟姐妹檔還分別互揭對方瘡疤起來。開始說故事前，臭小鴻一直趴在我背上撒嬌。也許這群孩子是因為想到自己曾經調皮搗蛋不受控制，所以全都很包容，呵。

當故事說到媽媽又老又病時，有個女孩問「她會死掉嗎？」。我還來不及給答案，另一個孩子先說了「當然會啊，她很老了啊～」，本來熱烈的氣氛整個沉了下來。

Love you Forever (Content)

故事繼續下去，男孩唱著媽媽的歌給年老的媽媽聽，也給自己新生的女兒聽，

「換他唱歌了！」

「他坐的那個椅子是媽媽以前坐著唱歌給他聽的椅子～」

「他抱著媽媽好像在抱小北鼻喔～」

「媽媽變的好小～」

「媽媽家牆上都是小男孩的照片～」

「他也有小孩耶～」

「他唱他媽媽的歌給小北鼻聽～」

我知道這一刻孩子們懂得了彼此付出與愛的傳遞。這正是一個好故事與一本好圖畫書的力量，不需多餘的言語，就能把美好的價值傳遞給孩子。持續的灌溉，有一天將會看到那顆珍貴的種子萌發。

這本書是從一首歌開始延伸出來的，故事裡的歌曲非常有感染力，我大約唱第三次時，幾個女孩子已經可以跟著一起哼。即使沒有刻意教唱，故事的最後，所有的孩子都能一起唱了。我唱的版本其實跟Robert Monsch的不太一樣，不過就像作者在他的官網中說的，每個人都應該有自己的「Love You Forever」。

在Robert Monsch的官網裡有他關於這本書的創作背景的說明（才知道為什麼這本書跟他其他作品的幽默風格如此不同）。

Love You Forever started as a song.

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
as long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

I made that up after my wife and I hadtwo babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn't even sing it because every time I tried tosing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn't sing.

For a long time it was just a song but one day, while telling stories at a big theatre at the University of Guelph, it occurred to me that I might be able to make a story around the song.

Out popped Love You Forever, pretty much the way it is in the book.

My regular publisher felt that it was not really a kid's book and I ended up doing it with another publisher.

One day the publisher called up and said, "This is very strange. It is selling very well in retirementcommunities in Arizona. It is selling in retirement communities where kids are illegal. This is supposed to be a children's book. What is going on?"

"Grownups are buying it forgrownups!"

In fact, it turned out that parents buyit for grandparents and grandparents buy it for parents and kids buy it for everybody and everybody buys it for kids.

As a matter of fact, everybody buys i tfor everybody. That's why it sells a lot of copies. I think it's my best book. So far it has sold about 15,000,000 copies.

Everybody makes up their own song for this book. I would like to put different versions of the song up on this site, now that the site has sound on it. If you send me your version, either as a tape or an audio file or a MR3 file, I will try to put it up in the LOVE YOU page. If lots of people send me their versions, I will not be able to put them all up, but I would like to hear them even if I can't put them on the site.

The way I sing it in the story is just MY version. You are supposed to make up your own.

這本書英文版有兩個版本，我個人比較喜歡Sheila McGraw畫的這個版本（左，Robert Monsch的官網上放的也是這個版本）。

Love You Forever Love you Forever (Content)