蝸牛汁: 有趣的家庭生活點滴

誰說一定是「虎媽」才是好媽媽？幽默、歡樂一樣可以造就好孩子，起碼在充滿歡樂的作者家至少是如此。「蝸牛汁」包含了一篇篇紀錄孩子們的成長過程，作者以身為母親的觀察與感想，隨意用英文寫下的日常小故事。原本只是在臉書上與大家分享，沒想到引起網友極大的迴響。在親友的鼓勵下，選擇了其中三十篇編輯成冊，並翻譯成中文，以中英對照的方式呈現，並透過繪圖者的巧思，很有創意的在書中加入本書主角小亮與小玉的插畫。這本書不僅是有趣的家庭生活點滴，也是英文學習最好的工具。17 Gua Niu Juice Sophie is a smart cookie...it's getting harder and harder for Daddy to trick her. For years now, Daddy has been offering Henry Gua Niu (Snail) Juice with dinner, but Henry always responded with, "No! Ewwwww! That's gross!" A couple weeks ago, Daddy decided to start the joke with three-year-old Sophie as well, and offered her Gua Niu Juice for dinner. Calling Daddy's bluff, Sophie looked Dad in the eye and said calmly, "Okay. I want Gua Niu Juice." Daddy was actually pretty taken aback, and asked her, "Are you sure? Are you sure you don't want some other juice?" Sophie responded, "No, I want Gua Niu Juice." Then she waited patiently at the table while Daddy retreated into the kitchen to decide what to do next. I asked Sophie, "You really want Gua Niu Juice?" Sophie replied, "Yup." "What color do you think Gua Niu Juice is?" I asked her. "Green," she responded nonchalantly. At this point, my husband decided he was not going to let Sophie win and colored her orange juice with green food coloring. Then he triumphantly presented Sophie with her sippy cup of green juice, "Here's your Gua Niu Juice!" Sophie was momentarily paralyzed with shock and horror as she looked at her sippy cup. Then she pushed it away, saying, "I don't want that! That's green! Are you joking?!" The three of us couldn't stop laughing while Sophie looked genuinely disturbed! But we tried really hard to convince her to try some, and when she finally did, she announced with a big smile, "That's not Gua Niu Juice! That's orange juice!"17 蝸牛汁小玉是個鬼靈精…爸爸現在越來越捉弄不了她了。這幾年以來，晚飯時爸爸常問小亮要不要喝蝸牛汁，小亮總是回答：「不要！太噁心了！」幾星期之前，爸爸決定也要跟三歲的小玉開這個玩笑。晚飯時，爸爸問她要不要喝蝸牛汁。小玉一眼就看出來爸爸在吹牛開玩笑，她便直視著爸爸，很鎮定地說：「好啊！我要喝蝸牛汁。」爸爸其實還真嚇了一跳，問她說：「真的嗎？你確定不要換別的果汁嗎？」小玉回答：「不要，我要蝸牛汁。」於是，當爸爸退到廚房思考下一步該怎麼做時，小玉就耐心地坐在桌旁等待。我問小玉：「你真的想喝蝸牛汁？」小玉說：「真的！」我又問她：「你認為蝸牛汁是什麼顏色的？」她淡淡的回答：「綠色。」這時候，爸爸決定他不能讓小玉贏這一回合，就把綠色的食用顏料加入她的橘子汁中，然後得意地將裝了綠色果汁的杯子遞給小玉：「這是你要的蝸牛汁！」小玉一時間呆住了，一臉驚恐地看著她的杯子。然後，她將杯子推開，說：「我不要這個！那是綠色的！你在開玩笑嗎？」我們三人忍不住大笑，而小玉的表情看來真的非常的困擾！我們很努力地勸她嚐一點，當她終於嚐了一口之後，她開心地宣告說：「那不是蝸牛汁！那是橘子汁！」