I saw an accident on my way to the college three days ago.

    I was waiting for the bus at the but stop. When the bus came, I got on the bus and sat on the window side. The bus started to move. After about five minutes, the bus stopped to wait for the signal(信号灯). I looked outside and saw an old man crossing the road. There were not many people on the road. A boy was riding a motorbike very fast form my side. It seemed that he did not see the signal. When the boy took notice of the old man, he tried to slow down his motorbike but there was no time. He collided with the old man very badly. The old man was thrown far away The boy also fell down. His head hit the road but it was saved because of his helmet(头盔). Both of them lay in the pool of blood. Many people gathered(聚集) around them and gave their ideas. I got afraid because I saw the whole accident. Then a woman stopped and called the ambulance( 救护车 ). It came quickly and rushed them to hospital.

    The next day I read the newspaper. The old man died in the ambulance but the boy was saved in time. This was the most terrible accident I saw ever in my life.

    If you have no special plans for your holidays, why not spend your time helping others?

    Don't listen to people who say the young people today often think only of themselves. It's not true at all. More and more people in the USA volunteer to spend their school holidays working for others. And they don't do it for money. Here are some of their stories.

Alice Hamilton, 17

    I'm going to help the Forest Centre build new hiking paths in the mountains. It's going to be terrific—I'll spend the whole summer living in the tent and breathing the clean mountain air. I'm going to sleep under the stars. It'll be a nice sport, and I'll be able to do something good at the same time.

Jason Moore, 18

    This summer, I'm going to volunteer with Special House Program. They build good, low-cost houses and sell them to families that are not very rich. They'll teach me what to do, so I'll help people and also have a chance to learn how to build houses.

Trish Anderson, 16

    I'm going to teach kids who have trouble reading. I'll work for a program called Reading For Life. Every day, I'm going to help kids choose and read books that they like. I want to be a teacher and I love children and reading, so this is going to be a great experience for me.

    Annie Sullivan had a hard life. She grew up alone and very poor. Annie had trouble with her eyes, too. She could not see well.

    One day after Annie grew up, a family called her. They needed help with their daughter. Their little daughter's name was Helen Keller. Helen needed a teacher.

    Helen could not see. She could not hear, either. She felt scared and lonely(孤独的). Annie wanted to help Helen. She wanted to be able to talk to her.

    Annie tried to teach Helen a sign language, a way to make words with hands. But Helen did not know what Annie tried to teach her.

    One day near the outside water pump, Annie had an idea. She put one of Helen's hands in the water. Then Annie let Helen feel W-A-T-E-R on her other hand again and again and again.

    At last, Helen knew. She learned that what she was feeling had a name. Helen was on her way to a lifetime of learning.

    Calvin needs to go to New York for a meeting this Saturday. It's sunny. It's his first time to go to New York, so he doesn't know his way(路) around New York. The meeting is in Peterson Building on 34th Street and it starts at ten o'clock. He wants to get there on time, so he asks two American boys for help.

    "Excuse me, could you tell me where 34th Street is?" asks Calvin.

    "Sure," answers one of the boys." It's not far from here. And you can just walk along this street and turn left at the first crossing. Then you can see it on your right."

    "No. Don't listen to him. He is not telling you the right place. You can just take the No.7 bus and get off at the third stop," says the other boy.

    Then the first boy says, "OK. But the third stop is not 34th Street. It's 35th Street."

    At this time, Calvin finds that there's only five minutes left(剩下). Then he gets into a taxi(出租车) and leaves. After that, Calvin thinks he should ask a policeman for help next time.

Haili Smith, 16, says she and her sister, Brooke, "have very different tastes in books." Haili likes horror stories. Brooke, 13, prefers fantasy. What they share is the belief that kids are more likely to read if they are connected with a book's characters. That's why, in 2020, they started Books Like Me. The nonprofit group donates (捐赠) culturally different children's books to schools.

"We didn't really like reading a few years ago", Haili told TIME for Kids. "[Then] we started to look for books that had characters we saw ourselves in. It made us want to read more. We thought we could share that with students, because we knew that this wasn't something that changed us only."

Haili and Brooke started with an Amazon Wish List of books they liked. They shared the list on social media, asking for donations of these titles. Soon, they began receiving boxes of new books to give away to schools. As word about their organization has spread, requests have come in from schools nationwide. So far, Haili and Brooke have given away more than 16, 000 books.

Anitra Carter teaches fourth grade at a primary school in Florida. She says donations from Books Like Me have gotten her students more interested in reading. "It excites them when seeing a character that may represent (代表；象征) them or look similar to them," Carter says.

Over the years, Haili and Brooke have been invited to speak with educators about the importance of culturally diverse books. They've also taken books directly to students. At a book fair in Florida, "I was at a table showing kids the books and they were picking them out," Haili recalls. "They all looked so happy when they found a book that really resonated (共鸣) with them."

That, of course, is the goal. "I hope, and I think," Haili says, "that all kids should ____ so that they enjoy reading."