无题

I ask children to forgive me for dedicating this book to a grown-up. I have a serious excuse：this grown-up is the best friend I have in the world. I have another excuse：this grown-up can understand everything, even books for children. I have a third excuse：he lives in France where he is hungry and cold. He needs to be comforted. If all these excuses are not enough, then I want to dedicate this book to the child whom this grown-up once was. All grown-ups were children first. （But few of them remember it.）so I correct my dedication：

To Leon Werth

when he was a little boy

Chapter I

Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.

In the book it said：“Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion.”

I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked like this：

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.

But they answered：“Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing：I drew the inside of the boa