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.

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。

A file photo of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. He 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职业道德 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 Lodge², his family's official residence in the capital, Canberra.

"It's delightful³, it's actually very very cute, even cuter than one might imagine," the spokeswoman said.

"Jasper in the flesh本人，亲自 is very hoity-toity傲慢的，轻浮的, 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庆祝，纪念 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 diplomat⁵ 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.