Mr. Popper’s penguins - 1938 by Richard and Florence Atwater

Mr. Popper’s penguins - 1938 by Richard and Florence Atwater

 

Text copyright 1938 by Richard and Florence Atwater

Coryright renewed 1966 by Florence Atwater, Doris Atwater, and Carroll Atwater Bishop

Illustrations copyright 1938 by Robert Lawson

 

이제 1년이 되어가는 영어읽기 공부의 일환으로 고른 책 입니다.

<Mr. Popper’s Penguins> 이 책은 책 날개에 적힌 이야기부터 아주 인상적 입니다.

남편인 리차드가 이 책을 쓰다가 병에 걸려 쓰지 못하게 되자, 부인인 플로렌스가 이어서 이 책 쓰기를 마쳤다는 이야기 입니다. 1938년에 세상에 나온 책 입니다. 생각해 보세요. 1938년이면 대한민국은 일본제국주의의 침략에 나라를 뺏기고 아직 독립도 하기 전 입니다. 지금 같은 교통과 통신은 없었습니다. 책을 비롯해서 유튜브, 스마트폰, 컴퓨터, 같은 것도 당연히 없을 때 입니다. 그 당시에 사시던 분들 중에 ‘펭귄’이나 ‘남극’, ‘북극’을 아는 분들이 얼마나 되었을까요? 지금(2024년 3월 4일)의 어린이들에게 5대조 6대조 할아버지 할머니들이 사셨던 1938년에는, 이 책은 지금 우리와는 다르게 읽으셨을 것입니다. 읽으실 여유가 있으셨다면 말이죠.

 

파퍼씨의 퇴근길

 

1.     이야기의 시작

 

이야기의 시작 역시 참 좋습니다.

한적한 마을 Stillwater 에 사는 페인트와 도배 기능인인 Mr. Popper씨는 사랑하는 가족들을 위해 일을 열심히 하지만, 누구도 말리지 못하는 또 다른 열정을 갖고 살고 있습니다. 한 번도 마을을 벗어나 본 적도 없지만, 바깥 넓은 다른 세상을 동경하고, 먼 곳으로의 여행을 꿈꾸며 살아갑니다. 그 중에서도 남극과 북극을 동경합니다. 탐험가 Admiral Drake가 출연한 영화도 보러 가고, 북극과 남극에 대한 신간이 나오면 제일 먼저 도서관에서 책을 빌려다 읽습니다. 그리고 Admiral Drake에게 펜레터도 씁니다. 일을 열심히 하지만, 퇴근 후에는 오롯이 자신만의 책 속에 빠져 살고, 일이 없는 겨울엔 더욱 더 하루 종일 선물로 받은 지구본과 책들 사이에 빠져 살아갑니다. 이렇게 이 책은 시작합니다.

 아래는 이 시작부분이 재미있어서 책의 내용을 발췌해서 적은 내용 입니다.

< It was an afternoon in late September. In the pleasant little city of Stillwater, Mr. Popper, the house painter, was going home from work. He was carrying his buckets, his ladders, and his boards so that he had rather a hard time moving along. He was spattered here and there with paint and calcimine, and there were bits of wallpaper clinging to his hair and whiskers, for he was rather an untidy man.

The children looked up from their play to smile at him as he passed, and the housewives, seeing him, said, “Oh dear, there goes Mr. Popper. I must remember to ask John to have the house painted over in the spring.”

No one knew what went on inside of Mr. Popper’s head, and no one guessed that he would one day be the most famous person in Stillwater.

He was a dreamer. Even when he was busiest smoothing down the paste on the wallpaper, or painting the outside of other people’s houses, he would forget what he was doing, Once he had painted three sides of a kitchen green, and the other side yellow. The housewife, instead of being angry and making him do it over, had liked it so well that she had made him leave it that way. And all the other housewives, when they saw it, admired it too, so that pretty soon everybody in Stillwater had two-colored kitchens.

 The reason Mr. popper was so absent-minded was that he was always dreaming about far-away countries. He had never been out of Stillwater. Not that he was unhappy. He had a nice little house of his own, a wife whom he loved dearly, and two children, named Janie and Bill. Still, it would have been nice, he often thought, if he could have seen something of the world before he met Mrs. Popper and settled down. He had never hunted tigers in India, or climbed the peaks of the Himalayas, or dived for pearls in the South Seas. Above all, he had never seen the Poles.

 That was what he regretted most of all. He had never seen those great shining white expanses of ice and snow. How wished that he had been a scientist, instead of a house painter in Stillwater, so that he might have joined some of the great Polar expeditions. Since he could not go, he was always thinking about them.

 Whenever he heard that a Polar movie was in town, he was the first person at the ticket-window, and often he sat through three shows. Whenever the town library had a new book about the Arctic or Antarctic – the North Pole or the South Pole – Mr. Popper was the first to borrow it. Indeed, he had read so much about Polar explorers that he could name all of them and tell you what each had done. He was quite an authority on the subject.

 His evenings were the best time of all. Then he could sit down in his little house and read about those could regions at the top and bottom of the earth. As he read he could take the little globe that Janie and Bill had given him the Christmas before, and search out the exact spot he was reading about.

 So now, as he made his way through the streets, he was happy because the day was over, and because it was the end of September.

 When he came to the gate of the neat little bungalow at 432 Proudfoot Avenue, he turned in.

 “Well, my love,” he said, setting down his buckets and ladders and boards, and kissing Mrs. Popper, “the decorating season is over. I have painted all the kitchens in Stillwater: I have papered all the rooms in the new apartment building on Elm Street. There is no more work until spring, when people will want their houses painted.”

 Mrs. Popper sighed. “I sometimes wish you had the kind of work that lasted all year, instead of just from spring until fall,” she said. “It will be very nice to have you at home for a vacation, of course, but it is a little hard to sweep with a man sitting around reading all day.”

 “I could decorate the house for you.”

 “No, indeed,” said Mrs. Popper firmly. “Last year you painted the bathroom four different times, because you had nothing else to do, and I think that is enough of that. But what worries me is the money. I have saved a little, and I daresay we can get along as we have other winters. No more roast beef, no more ice cream, not even on Sundays.”

 “Shall we have beans every day?” asked Janie and Bill, coming in from play.

 “I’m afraid so.” Said Mrs. Popper. “Anyway, go wash your hands. For supper. And Papa, put away this litter of paints, because you won’t be needing them for quite a while.” > <p. 5~10 발췌>

 

1.     그리고 헤프닝들

 

이렇게 시작한 등장인물들 사이에 펭귄 Captain Cook 이 들어오게 됩니다.

너무나도 당연히 시작되는 문제와 헤프닝들 또한 벌어집니다. 파퍼씨네 가족들과 펭귄들과의 우당탕탕 사건, 사고들이 적절한 그림과 같이 재미있게 다가옵니다.

 

2024년인 지금은 볼 거리가 넘쳐납니다. 정보의 홍수에 치이며 살아간다고 해도 과언이 아닐 것입니다. 책과 같은 인쇄매체 보다 더 자극적이고 인상 깊은 영상과 게임, 등의 매체들이 넘쳐 납니다. 그래서 아마도 요즘의 어린이들이 이 책에 흥미를 느끼기 어려울 수도 있다고 생각합니다. 더 자극적이고, 더 짧고, 더 쉽게 접근할 수 있는 이야기들이 많으니까요. ‘시장이 반찬이다’는 말이 있듯이 자극으로부터 잠시 벗어나서 조용한 시간을 스스로에게 줄 수 있다면, 이 책도 꽤나 괜찮은 맛의 책 입니다. 귀여운 펭귄이 나오는 소소하지만 재미있고, 헤피인딩인 이 책, 또 얇기도 하기에 어린이들에게 읽기를 추천해 봅니다.

 

아래에는 제가 재미있게 읽었던 부분인 사건의 시작과 사건들을 옮겨 적어 봅니다.

 

 

 

 

<< 사건의 시작

 

THAT EVENING, when the little Poppers had been put to bed, Mr and Mrs. Popper settled down for a long, quiet evening. The neat living room at 432 Proudfoot Avenue was much like all the other living rooms in Stillwater, except that the walls were hung with pictures from the National Geographic Magazine. Mrs. Popper picked up her mending, while Mr. Popper collected his pipe, his book, and his globe.

 From time to time Mrs, Popper sighed a little as she thought about the long winter ahead. Would there really be enough beans to last, she wondered.

 Mr. Popper was not worried, however. As he put on his spectacles, he was quite pleased at the prospect of a whole winter of reading travel books, with no work to interrupt him. He set his little globe beside him and began to read.

 “What are you reading?” asked Mrs. Popper.

 “I am reading a book called ‘Antarctic Adventures’. It is very interesting. It tells all about the different people who have gone to the South Pole and what they have found there.”

 “Don’t you ever get tired of reading about the South Pole?”

 “No, I don’t. Of course I would much rather go there than read about it. But reading is the next best thing.”

 “I think it must be very boring down there,” said Mrs. Popper. “It sounds very dull and cold, with all that ice and snow.”

“Oh, no” answered Mr. Popper. “You wouldn’t think it was dull if you had gone with me to see the movies of the Drake Expedition at the Bijou last year.”

 “Well, I didn’t, and I don’t think any of us will have any money for movies now,” answered Mrs. Popper, a little sharply. She was not at all a disagreeable woman, but she sometimes got rather cross when she was worried about money.

 “If you had gone, my love,” went on Mr. Popper, “you would have seen how beautiful the Antarctic is. But I think the nicest part of all is the penguins. No wonder all the men on that expedition had such a good time playing with them. They are the funniest birds in the world. They don’t fly like other birds. They walk erect like little men. When they get tired of walking they just lie down on their stomachs and slide. It would be very nice to have one for a pet.”

 “Pets!” said Mrs. Popper. “First it’s Bill wanting a dog and then Janie begging for a kitten. Now you and penguins! But I won’t have any pets around. They make too much dirt in the house, and I have enough work now, trying to keep this place tidy. To say nothing of what it costs to feed a pet. Anyway, we have the bowl of goldfish.”

 “Penguins are very intelligent,” continued Mr, Popper.

 “Listen to this, Mamma. It says here that when they want to catch some shrimps, they all crowd over to the edge of an ice bank. Only they don’t just jump in, because a sea leopard might be waiting to eat the penguins. So they crowd and push until they manage to shove one penguin off, to see if it’s safe. I mean if the doesn’t get eaten up, the rest of them know it’s safe for them all to jump in.”

 “Dear me!” said Mrs. Popper in a shocked tone. “They sound to me like pretty heathen birds.”

 “It’s a queer thing.” Said Mr. Popper, “that all the polar bears live at the North Pole and all the penguins at the South Pole. I should thing the penguins would like the North Pole, too, if they only knew how to get there.”

 At ten o’clock Mrs. Popper yawned and laid down the mending. “Well, you can go on reading about those heathen birds, but I am going to bed. Tomorrow is Thursday, September thirtieth, and I have to go to the first meeting of the Ladies’ Aid and Missionary Society.”

 “September Thirtieth!” said Mr. Popper in an excited tone. “You don’t mean that tonight is Wednesday, September twenty-ninth?”

 “Why, yes, I suppose it is. But what of it?”

Mr. Popper put down his book of ‘Antarctic Adventures’ and moved hastily to the radio.

 “What of it!” he repeated, pushing the switch. “Why, this is the night the Drake Antarctic Expedition is going to start broadcasting.”

 “That’s nothing.” Said Mrs. Popper. “Just a lot of men at the bottom of the world saying “Hellow, Mamma. Hello, Papa.”

 “Sh!” commanded Mr. Popper, laying his ear close to the radio.

 There was a buzz, and then suddenly, from the South Pole, a faint voice floated out into the Popper living room.

 “This is Admiral Drake speaking. Hello, Mamma. Hello, Papa. Hello, Mr. Popper.”

 “Gracious goodness,” exclaimed Mrs. Popper. “Did he say ‘papa’ or ‘Popper’?”

 “Hello, Mr. Popper, up there in Stillwater. Thanks for your nice letter about the pictures of our last expedition. Watch for an answer. But not by letter, Mr. Popper. Watch for a surprise. Signing off. Signing off.”

 “You wrote to Admiral Drake?”

 “Yes, I did.” Mr. Popper admitted. “I wrote and told him how funny I thought the penguins were.”

 “Well, I never,” said Mrs. Popper, very much impressed.

 Mr. Popper picked up his little glove and found the Antarctic. “And to thing he spoke to me all the way from there. And he even mentioned my name. Mamma, what do you suppose he means by a surprise?”

 “I haven’t any idea.” Answered Mrs. Popper, “but I’m going to bed. I don’t want to be late for the Ladies’ Aid and Missionary Society meeting tomorrow.”>> <p. 11~ 16>

 

<< 웃음 사건1 – 냉장고 수리기사와 경찰

 

The service man was still on the floor, putting in the final screws that held the new handle in place, when the penguin came out to the kitchen on his silent pink feet.

 Surprised at seeing a strange man sitting on the floor, Captain Cook quietly walked over and began to peck him curiously. But the service man was even more surprised than Captain Cook.

 “Ork.” Said the penguin. Or perhaps it was the service man. Mr. popper was not sure just what had happened when he picked up himself and his chair a moment later. There had been a shower of flying tools, a violent slamming of the door, and the service man was gone.

 These sudden noises, of course, brought the children running. Mr. Popper showed them how the refrigerator was now all remodeled for the penguin. He showed Captain Cook, too, by shutting him inside it. The penguin at once noticed the shiny new inside handle and bit it with his usual curiosity. The door opened, and Captain Cook jumped out.

 Mr. Popper promptly put Captain Cook back inside and shut the door again, to be sure that the penguin learned his lesson. Before long, Captain Cook became quite skillful at getting out and was ready to be taught how to get inside when the door was shut.

 By the time the policeman came to the back door, Captain Cook was going in and out the refrigerator as easily as if he had lived in one all his life.

 

THE CHILDREN were the first to notice the policeman.

 “Look, Papa,” said Bill. “There’s a policeman at the back door. Is he going to arrest you?”

 “Gook,” said Captain Cook, walking with dignity to the door, and trying to poke his beak through the screen.

 “Is this 432 Proudfoot Avenue?”

 “It is,” answered Mr. Popper.

 “Well, I guess this is the place all right.” Said the policeman, and pointed to Captain Cook. “Is that thing yours?”

 “Yes, it is,” said Mr. Popper, proudly.

 “And what do you do for a living?” asked the policeman sternly.

 “Papa is an artist,” said Janie.

 “He’s always getting paint and calcimine all over his clothes.” Said Bill.

 “I’m a house painter, a decorator,” said Mr. Popper.

 “Won’t you come in?”

 “I won’t,” said the policeman, “unless I have to.”

 “Ha, ha!” said Bill. “The policeman is afraid of Captain Cook.”

 “Gaw!” said the penguin, opening his red beak wide, as if he wanted to laugh at the policeman.

 “Can it talk?” asked the policeman. “What is it – a giant parrot?”

 “It’s a penguin,” said Janie. “We keep it for a pet.”

 “Well, if it’s only a bird …” said the policeman, lifting his cap to scratch his head in a puzzled sort of way. “From the way that fellow with a tool bag yelled at me outside, I thought there was a lion loose in here.”

 “Mamma says Papa’s hair looks like a lion’s sometimes,” said Bill.

 “Keep still, Bill,” said Janie. “The policeman doesn’t care how Papa’s hair looks.”

 The policeman now scratched his chin. “If it’s only a bird, I suppose it will be O.K. if you keep him in a cage.”

 “We keep him in the icebox,” said Bill.>>  <p. 36~ 41>

 

사자를 만난듯 도망가는 냉장고 기사

 

 

<< 웃음 사건2

 

It had been decided that Mr. Popper should ride in the baggage car with the penguins to keep them from getting nervous, while Mrs. Popper and the children should ride in one of the Pullmans. Because of getting on at the observation end of the train, Mr. Popper had to take the birds through the whole length of the train.

 It was easy enough to get them through the club car, even with the pail of fish to carry. In the sleeping cars, however, where the poter was already making up some of the berths, there was trouble.

 The porters’ ladder offered too much temptation to the penguins.

 There were dozen happy ‘Orks’ from a dozen ecstatic beaks. Popper’s Performing Penguins, completely forgetting their discipline, fought to climb the ladders and get into the upper berths.

 Poor Mr. Popper! One old lady screamed that she was going to get off the train, whether it was going ninety miles an hour or not. A gentleman wearing a clergyman’s collar suggested opening a window, so that the penguins could jump out. Two porters tried to shoo the birds out of the berths. Finally the conductor and the brakeman, with a lantern, came to the rescue.

 It was quite a while before Mr. Popper got his pets safely into the baggage car.

 Mrs. Popper worried a little, at the start, over the idea of having Janie and Bill miss ten weeks of school while they were on the road, though the children did not seem to mind.

 “And you must remember, my love,” said Mr. Popper, who had never before been out of Stillwater, in spite of his dreams of distant countries, “that travel is very broadening.”

 From the start the penguins were a riotous success. Even their opening performance in Seattle went off without a hitch – probably because they had already rehearsed on a real stage.

 It was here that the penguins added a little novelty number of their own to the program. They were the first thing on the bill. When they finished their regular act, the audience went wild. T?hey clapped and stamped and roared for more of Popper’s Performing Penguins.

 Janie and Bill helped their father herd the penguins off the stage, so that the next act could go on.

 This next act was a tightrope walker, named Monsieur Duval. The trouble was that instead of watching him from the wings, as they should have done, the penguins got interested and walked out on the stage again to watch him more closely.

 Unfortunately at this moment Monsieur Duval was doing a very difficult dance on the wire overhead.

 The audience, of course, had thought that the penguins were all through, and were very much pleased to see them return and line up with their backs to the audience and look up at Monsieur Duval, dancing so carefully on the wire high above them.

 This made everyone laugh so hard that Monsieur Duval lost his balance.

 “Ork!” said the penguins waddling away hurriedly, in order not to be under him when he fell.

 Cleverly recovering his balance, Monsieur Duval caught the wire by the inside of his elbow and saved himself. He was very angry when he saw the Popper Performing Penguins opening wide their twelve red beaks, as if they were laughing at him.

 “Go away, you stupid things.” He said to them in French.

 “Ork?” said the penguins, pretending not to understand, and making remarks to each other in penguin language about Monsiure Duval.

 And whenever they appeared, the more they interfered with the other acts on the program the better the audiences liked them. >> <p. 100~105 >

 

파퍼씨네 펭귄들 사다리 공연 모습

 

난리난 객차소동

 

3.     영어 공부 후기

 

이 책을 읽기를 마침으로 영어 읽기 공부를 시작한 지 1년을 채웠습니다.

이 책은 렉사일지수가 910이라 그런지 단어나 구문이 저에게는 어려웠습니다. 그렇지만 책이 얇고, 그림이 많고, 재미있고 가벼운 주제라는 점들이 그 어려운 점을 어느 정도까지는 상쇄해 주었습니다. 2회독 하는데 3주가 조금 안 걸렸습니다. 3회독째 50페이지를 읽다가 멈추었습니다. 너무나 지루했기 때문입니다. 듣기와, 말하기, 쓰기를 무시한 채 읽기만 하고 있는데 영어 실력이 너무 늘지 않는 것 같은 걱정이 생깁니다. 그리고 이 책의 파퍼씨와 같이 생계를 위한 일을 해야 하기에 영어 공부를 중단해야 할 수도 있다는 생각이 제 마음을 무겁게 하네요.

 

긴 글 봐주셔서 감사합니다.

여러분 항상 건강하시길 바라겠습니다.