澳总理陆克文忙里偷闲写儿童读物

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has taken time out of his busy schedule to indulge his imagination by penning a children's book featuring his family pets, a spokeswoman said Sunday.

Rudd -- who is so famed for his jet-setting work ethic he has been nicknamed "Kevin 707" by the local press -- wrote the book with Australian children's television star Rhys Muldoon, his spokeswoman told reporters.

Titled "Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle", the book follows Rudd's pet cat and dog on an adventure through the grounds of The Lodge, his family's official residence in the capital, Canberra.

"It's delightful, it's actually very very cute, even cuter than one might imagine," the spokeswoman said.

"Jasper in the flesh is very hoity-toity, in a good cat way, and Abby's gorgeous. They're old family pets, much beloved."

The book will be released on the January 26 Australia Day holiday, which commemorates the landing of the first fleet on Australian shores in 1788. Some profits from the sale of the book will go to children's charities, the spokeswoman said.

The Mandarin-speaking former diplomat Rudd jokingly told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper he had wanted to beat his novelist daughter Jessica into print, and it "wasn't the most demanding" text he had ever worked on.

"It's good to put a more human face on them," he said of his much-loved pets, who he claimed to have interviewed for the story with Muldoon.

澳大利亚政府一名女发言人上周日称，总理陆克文在繁忙的公务之外还驰骋想象力，写了一本以家中宠物为主角的儿童读物。

陆克文的女发言人告诉记者称，这本书由陆克文和澳大利亚儿童电视明星里斯．马尔登合着。陆克文因工作关系，坐着飞机满世界地跑，被当地媒体戏称为“Kevin 707”。

这本名为《贾斯珀、阿比和混乱的澳大利亚日》的儿童读物讲述了陆克文的爱猫和爱狗在澳大利亚首都堪培拉的总理官邸历险的故事。

这位女发言人说：“这本书令人开怀，非常非常可爱，可爱程度超乎你的想象。”

“现实生活中的贾斯珀神气活现，是一只非常可爱的宠物猫，阿比很漂亮。它们跟随主人多年，深受宠爱。”

这本书将于本月26日“澳大利亚日”当天发售。这位女发言人称，图书销售的部分收益将捐赠给儿童慈善组织。澳大利亚国庆日是为了纪念1788年首支舰队登陆澳大利亚港口。

会说汉语的前外交官陆克文在接受《星期日电讯报》的采访时开玩笑说，他希望这本书的印刷数量能够超过自己当小说家的女儿杰西卡，并称这不是他写过的“最难写的东西”。

在谈及自己的爱猫和爱狗时，陆克文说：“以拟人化的笔法来写它们很不错。”他称为写这本书，他还与马尔登对它们进行了“专访”。

Vocabulary:

jet-setting：cosmopolitan, well-off, ritzy, or trendsetting（乘喷气飞机到处旅游的，阔气的，奢华的）

in the flesh：present and alive before one's eyes; in person（活生生的；亲自，本人）

hoity-toity：assuming airs; pretentious; haughty（神气活现的，傲慢的）