在那遥远的地方 (1981)

《在那遥远的地方》（英语：Outside Over There）是一部由莫里斯·桑达克创作图文的绘本，1981年首度出版。讲述小女孩爱达如何救回被哥布林绑架的小妹妹的故事。

本作是桑达克的三部代表作（被称为“桑达克三部曲”）的最后一部，另两部是《野兽国》和《厨房之夜狂想曲》。桑达克说：“这三本书都是衍生自同一个主题：孩子们如何控制不同的感觉，如愤怒、无聊、恐惧、挫折及忌妒。然后试着在他们的真实生活中掌控这些感觉。三部曲的最后一部将会是最奇怪的。”

故事概要

小女孩爱达的父亲出海去了，母亲则坐在凉亭内。爱达在吹号角哄小妹妹时，不慎让小妹妹被哥布林绑走，留下一个冰做的假妹妹。待爱达发现后，便穿上黄雨衣、带上号角，出发去找妹妹。爱达在哥布林所在的洞窟内见到一群与妹妺长得一模一样的哥布林在婚礼上跳舞，爱达吹响号角，使哥布林们陷入疯狂的舞蹈之中，成功救回妹妹。在爱达回来后，母亲将父亲的一封来信读给她听。

创作

在创作这部绘本时，桑达克只听莫札特的音乐，许多灵感来自于莫札特。所以他让莫札特本人的身影在绘本临近结尾时出现在插图内。在《凯迪克与其他人——书籍与图画的评论》一书中，桑达克说《在那遥远的地方》“是一本关于莫札特和恐怖的书”。

获奖

凯迪克银奖（1982年）

美国国家图书奖（1982年）

Outside Over There is a picture book for children written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. It concerns a young girl named Ida, who must rescue her baby sister after the child has been stolen by goblins. Outside Over There has been described by Sendak as part of a type of trilogy based on psychological development from In the Night Kitchen (toddler) to Where the Wild Things Are (pre-school) to Outside Over There (pre-adolescent).

Synopsis

The father of Ida, the main character, is away at sea. She plays her horn each night to make her baby sister sleep. One night while she is playing her horn and not paying attention to the baby, goblins sneak in through the window and steal her baby sister away, replacing her with a changeling made of ice. The changeling melts as Ida cradles it and Ida, realizing what has happened, blows her wonder horn, dons her mother's yellow rain cloak, and sets off after her baby sister. However, because she exits the window backwards she enters Outside Over There where she cannot find the goblins or her sister. She then hears her father's voice telling her to turn around into the rain. She does so and interrupts the goblins, now in the form of babies, in the midst of a wedding. To find her sister among the crying babies, Ida plays a captivating tune on her horn until the goblins dance in a frenzy and fall into a stream. Ida then picks up her sister and heads home to her mother who has received a letter from her father where he promises to come home one day and asks Ida to watch over her sister.

Inspiration

In the documentary Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (2009), Sendak describes his awareness in 1932 (around age 4) of the sensational Lindbergh baby kidnapping case, including a newspaper photograph of the child's remains. That experience showed him the mortality and peril of children, which the adult Sendak expressed in many books. Outside Over There draws more specifically from the Lindbergh case. A child is stolen from its crib through a window, accessed by a ladder, and one of the illustrations of the lost baby is a deliberate portrait of the infant Charles Lindbergh Jr. The theme of a protective sister is drawn from Sendak's own childhood, in which his older sister was his primary caregiver and devoted playmate.

Awards

Some honors for Outside Over There:

National Book Award for Children's Books, category Picture Books (hardcover)

School Library Journal Best Book

Caldecott Honor Book 1982

Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards 1981

Library of Congress Children's Books

In other media

Jim Henson's 1986 film Labyrinth has conceptual similarities to the book. The similarities led to Sendak sending a legal complaint to Henson asking to stop production on the film; however, it was eventually settled. The closing credits of the film state "Jim Henson acknowledges his debt to the works of Maurice Sendak".

The book is featured in the 2003 Japanese film Café Lumière. It is used to help the main character, a young Japanese student named Yoko, interpret a dream.

English singer-songwriter Will Varley sings a song of the same title inspired by the book on his 2015 album Postcards from Ursa Minor.

In Victor LaValle's 2017 book The Changeling, the main character recites passages from Outside Over There in an effort to understand his son's disappearance.

Outside Over There plays an enormous role in the last section of Kenzaburo Oe’s The Changeling.