The Friends - Brossura

Yumoto, Kazumi; Hirano, Cathy

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0440414466 ISBN 13: 9780440414469

Casa editrice: Yearling Books, 2000

Riassunto

After Yamashita's grandmother dies, he and his friends begin to wonder if people turn into ghost when they die, and they start watching an old man who looks as though he is about to die to see if they will see his spirit leave him, but things do not go quite as planned. Reprint.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Kazumi Yumoto began her career as a writer by writing scripts for operas while attending Tokyo University of Music. After graduation she decided to try her hand at writing a novel for young readers. The Friends, her first book, is the winner of the 1997 Mildred A. Batchelder Award for Translation. It was also named an ALA Notable Children's Book and won the Recommended Book Prize from Japan School Library Book Club.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

An Excerpt from The Friends

      I count my breaths when I lie in bed. One, two, three, four, five, six.
      . .fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. . .After thirty I fall asleep.
      Sleep wraps itself around me and pulls me under, but sometimes I float back
      to the surface like an old shoe in water and I start counting again from
      the beginning. One, two, three, four. . .

      A long time ago I read that in one lifetime a person breaths from six hundred
      million to eight hundred million times, and I couldn't stop trying to count
      my breaths all day. It was in second grade, I think. But as I'd count, I
      wouldn't be able to keep breathing. When the lack of air became unbearable,
      I would burst out coughing and have to start counting all over again. I
      counted during class and even while I was eating. I'd gasp and cough so
      often that my mother would get irritated and say, "Stop that coughing!"
      But I didn't know how.

      In bed at night I would cry and scream, "I can't breathe! I've forgotten
      how! I'm going to die! Mom!" At first my mother would sit by my pillow or
      bring me warm milk to drink. This would calm me for a while, but as soon
      as she left I would be overcome by the same fear. "I can't breathe! I'm
      going to die!"

      I don't need to call my mother anymore, but I still count my breaths before
      I go to sleep. How many times have I breathed since I was born? If we breathe
      eight hundred million times in eighty years, then at twelve I must have
      breathed 120 million times. One hundred and twenty million little puffs
      of air have passed through my lungs. How many more times will this go on?
      Someday it will just stop, as though suddenly cut off. At five, eight, nine
      hundred million times. And then. . .where will I go? Or maybe there is no
      place to go.

      I try to stop breathing. I shove my face in my pillow and count. One, two,
      three. . .thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. . .thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two,
      thirty-three, thirty-four. . .I close my eyes tightly. Yellow lights flicker
      in the darkness, becoming a field of yellow flowers. My body starts to float
      as though I am a bird looking down on the field. No, a fire. The yellow
      flowers become little flames rising higher and spreading around them, forming
      a sea of flame. Someone stands there. Their feet are covered in flame and
      they wave to me. Who is it? But there it ends. I cannot stand it any longer
      and my whole body gasps for air.

      My uncle told me a long, long time ago when I was little that dying means
      to stop breathing. And for a long time I believed it. But now I know that
      that's not true. Living is more than just breathing. So dying must be more,
      too.

      

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Yearling Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0440414466
• ISBN 13: 9780440414469
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 169