"When my mother, Angela, was six years old, she felt sorry for the Baby Jesus in the Christmas crib...." Frank McCourt's first Christmas book is by turns tender and heartwarming, and wholly unforgettable. Angela is six years old and worries for the Baby Jesus on the altar of St. Joseph's Church near School House Lane in Limerick, Ireland, where she lives. December nights are damp and cold, and the church is dark. The Baby Jesus' mother doesn't even have a blanket to cover him. The Baby is sure to need Angela's help, even if she is not allowed to step near the altar, especially by herself. Filled with the character and incident that have made Pulitzer Prize recipient Frank McCourt internationally renowned and beloved, Angela and the Baby Jesus is a timeless story of family--and all of its joy, tradition, love, and incongruity--and a book for the generations to cherish.
Amazon.com Exclusive
Angela and the Baby Jesus , the first Christmas book from beloved author Frank McCourt, is an unprecedented event, with a children's edition published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing and an adult edition published by Scribner. Set in Ireland, the story is about the childhood of Angela, of Angela's Ashes . Each edition has the same story written by McCourt but is illustrated by a different artist. Raul Colon illustrated the children's edition and Loren Long illustrated the adult edition. Amazon asked both artists to write about their experiences illustrating the same scene from McCourt's story to get an inside look at how they interpreted McCourt's words.
Raul Colon on the Fireside Scene from Angela and the Baby Jesus :
This image for Frank McCourt's Angela and the Baby Jesus picture book came to me just by thinking of a warm fireplace on a cold night. In this particular scene the family sits around the fire to chat after tea. Angela's little brother is giving up the secret that the "Baby Jesus" is in the bed upstairs. Angela shows a bit of worry in her face, since she quietly snuck the "baby" into the house. Surely she'll be in trouble now. Throughout the story I hardly show any of the adult faces, focusing mainly on the children's world. Hence, Mother's back is turned toward us. I also cut off the little brother's face by having Mother's turn-of-the-century hairdo get in the way (A little thing I learned from the great artist Degas.) It gives the scene intimacy, as if the viewer is there taking a snapshot with his camera. All in all a fun and rewarding book to illustrate. It was an honor to turn McCourt's words into actual pictures. --Raul Colon
Loren Long on the Fireside Scene from Angela and the Baby Jesus :
Usually little Angela would want to be right in the middle of the action as the family sits by the fire and talks. But not this time--she has a secret upstairs. At this point in the story, I'm giving the reader a seat behind the family in the shadows away from the fire. At the same time we, the readers, know about Angela's secret in the bedroom upstairs and we see her hanging back from the others, sneaking peeks up the staircase. We can see that she has something more important on her mind than her family's chattering. In my visual interpretation of Angela and the Baby Jesus , I wanted to tap into Frank McCourt's sophisticated blend of gritty realism and subtle humor. For this reason, I specifically chose a limited color palette. I worked with acrylics on canvas and tried to keep the paintings a bit edgy and raw. Choosing images came naturally when working on this story. I was taken with the balance of reverence, innocence, and humor in Frank’s text and I simply tried to come up with creative ways to portray these elements in a subtle but hopefully profound way. --Loren Long
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这本书的封面设计简直太吸引人了,那种复古的油画质感,配上大胆的字体排版,立刻就把我带入了一种既庄重又带着一丝诡谲的氛围之中。我通常对这种带有强烈视觉冲击力的作品抱有很高的期待,而这本书的内页设计也丝毫没有让人失望。装帧的精细度,纸张的触感,乃至章节之间的分隔设计,都透露出一种对细节的极致追求。阅读体验上,作者的叙事节奏把握得炉火纯青,开篇的几页就迅速抛出了一个引人入胜的悬念,让人忍不住想要一口气读完。它不是那种平铺直叙的故事,而是充满了隐喻和多层次的解读空间。每当我以为自己抓住了故事的主线时,作者总能巧妙地将视角拉远,展现出更宏大或更私密的图景。我尤其欣赏作者在描绘人物内心挣扎时的那种细腻和坦诚,那种直抵人性的幽微之处,让人在阅读时会不自觉地代入角色,体验那种复杂的情感纠葛。这本书的语言本身就像一件精心打磨的艺术品,用词精准,句式多变,时而如诗歌般流畅,时而又如同利刃般锋利。
评分这本书的哲学思辨的深度,远远超出了我预期的范围。我原本以为这会是一部纯粹的、聚焦于某个特定事件的叙事作品,但随着阅读的深入,我发现作者正在探讨一些关于“存在”、“记忆”和“身份认同”的宏大命题。它不是那种生硬地灌输道理的哲学书,而是通过极其生动和具体的人物命运,将这些抽象的概念具象化了。比如,书中某一个角色的反复自我怀疑和对过往片段的执着,就完美地诠释了时间对个体认知结构的重塑作用。我常常需要停下来,合上书本,对着天花板沉思良久,才能消化作者抛出的那几句话所蕴含的巨大信息量。这种需要“用力去读”的书籍,恰恰是能够留下深刻印记的。而且,作者的知识储备量令人惊叹,他对历史背景、艺术典故的引用都恰到好处,既丰富了文本的内涵,又没有显得卖弄学问,真正做到了为叙事服务,这一点非常难得。
评分说实话,我是在一个非常偶然的机会下翻开这本书的,起初并没有抱太大期望,毕竟现在市面上同类题材的作品太多了,很容易让人产生审美疲劳。但这本书,它成功地做到了“脱颖而出”。它的叙事结构非常精妙,像一个复杂的多米诺骨牌阵,每一个看似微不足道的场景或对话,都在后续的情节发展中起到了关键的支撑作用。我花了相当长的时间去梳理不同时间线之间的交错关系,那种需要读者主动参与、拼凑真相的过程,极大地提升了阅读的参与感和成就感。作者对于环境和氛围的渲染能力堪称一流,无论是在描绘熙熙攘攘的都市街景,还是在刻画幽静空旷的室内场景时,那种扑面而来的气息感几乎是立体的。我能清晰地“闻到”故事中弥漫的尘土味,感受到角色呼吸的频率。这种沉浸感,是很多作品难以企及的。更值得称赞的是,它巧妙地规避了许多老套的叙事陷阱,情节的发展总能出人意料,却又在回味之后觉得合乎逻辑,这正是优秀文学作品的标志。
评分我必须强调一下这本书在情感刻画上的细腻和克制。很多作者在处理冲突时,倾向于使用极端的情绪爆发来推动情节,但在这本书里,最大的风暴往往发生在人物最平静的时刻。那些未说出口的遗憾、那些深埋在心底的愧疚,通过细微的肢体语言、眼神的闪躲或者一段突兀的沉默被精准地捕捉和表达出来。这种“少即是多”的艺术处理,使得角色之间的关系充满了张力,让人为之屏息。我特别关注了两位主要人物之间的互动,他们之间的情感连接既有强烈的吸引力,又被现实的藩篱所阻碍,那种若即若离、欲言又止的状态,读起来让人心头一紧。作者在处理这种复杂的情感时,没有给出简单的道德评判,而是提供了一个让读者自行去感受和理解的复杂人性光谱。读完之后,我甚至感觉自己对现实生活中人际关系的理解又深入了一层,这本书带来的“情感教育”是无价的。
评分对于喜欢结构实验性叙事的读者来说,这本书简直是一份饕餮盛宴。它在叙事手法上展现出了极大的野心和成熟度。作者似乎有意地打破了传统的线性时间观,故事的片段如同被打碎的玻璃,需要读者在脑海中重新排列组合才能看到完整的图像。这种碎片化的叙事,非但没有造成阅读上的混乱,反而营造出一种梦境般的、非线性的真实感。我尤其欣赏作者对“视角转换”的娴熟运用,同一个事件,从不同的叙事者口中讲述出来,细节和侧重点的差异巨大,这迫使我不断反思:什么才是我们愿意相信的“事实”?叙事者本身的可靠性成为了一个持续被质疑的主题。这种高阶的写作技巧,无疑将这本书提升到了一个非常高的文学水准。它不仅仅是在讲一个故事,更是在探讨“故事本身是如何被建构和被理解”的过程,这种元小说(Metafiction)的特质,让它在众多作品中显得独树一帜,值得反复品味和研究。
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