On Miriam's 9th birthday two years ago, her aunt, who lives in Kenya（肯尼亚）, gave money to a group that cares for elephants to celebrate Miriam's birthday. Then Miriam and her mother visited Africa to learn how the group was helping elephants. Later, Miriam fell in love with the animals and wanted to help save them.

    A few months after visiting Africa, Miriam watched How I Became an Elephant, a film about the mistreatment of elephants in Thailand, and a young girl's effort to save them. Miriam decided she wanted to raise money to save elephants.

    Last year, Miriam created a program called They Deserve（应得） to Be Free after seeing how young elephants are abused in Thailand. She learned how people take a baby elephant, don't give it food or water for days and beat it hard. "It made me really sad. I need to do something useful." Miriam said.

    Miriam is working to make money for Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. She asked her friends to give money to the park rather than giving her birthday gifts.

    She recently joined about 12 other students in an art center. They made elephants from clay and decorated（装饰） them. Then she created a plan to sell clay elephants.

    Kate, Miriam's art teacher, opened her art studio（工作室） to Miriam and her friends on weekends so they could make clay elephants. She even gave them the clay." It's great to see a young student wanting to spend her time on something meaningful. This is what we should all work towards," Kate said.

    Miriam says she has sold 180 clay elephants worth 2, 000 dollars, and all of that money has been sent to Elephant Nature Park in Thailand.

    One day, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a letter to his mother. He {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (tell) her, "My teacher gave this letter to me and asked me to give it to my mother only." His {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (mother) eyes were full of tears as she read {#blank#}3{#/blank#} letter out loud to her child, "Your son is a genius (天才). This school is too small {#blank#}4{#/blank#} him and doesn't have enough good teachers to train him. Please teach him {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (you)."

    Many years after Edison's mother had died, Edison became one of the {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (great) inventors of the century. One day, he was going through the old closet (壁柜) and he found a folded letter which {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (give) to him by his teacher for his mother. He opened it. The message {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (write) on the letter was, "Your son is mentally (精神上) ill. We cannot let him attend our school any more, he has to leave the school."

    {#blank#}9{#/blank#} surprised and excited Edison was after reading it! And then he wrote in his diary, "Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child, but his mother turned him into the genius of the century {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(success)."

    Hot Dog is popular. It's not a dog, but a cooked sausage in a long piece of bread. Here are some stories and facts about it from English websites.

    Mike and Julia always wanted to be sure they were doing the right thing before they made important decisions.

    When they wanted to buy a car, it took a long time for them to decide which one to buy. They looked at all the different cars carefully. It had to be the right size, the right color and the right price. Finally, they chose the car they wanted.

    When they went out for dinner, it always took a long time before they chose what to eat. They carefully read the menu and discussed all the choices together. They were patient and never in a hurry.

    After a while they had a baby boy, they were happy and called him Jordan. Jordan smiled a lot, but he didn't make any noise. He never cried. All their friends said, "He's such a nice quiet baby!"

    Jordan learned everything that other babies learn. He learned to walk. He learned to go to the bathroom by himself. He learned to sleep in the bed. He learned to sit on a chair and eat at the table. However, he didn't learn how to talk and he still never cried. But Mike and Julia didn't worry about it too much. They just waited. They were confident Jordan would talk one day.

    One day, while eating dinner, Jordan suddenly said, "Mother, I think the soup needs a little more salt."

    Mike and Julia were surprised, "You can talk!" said Julia.

    "Of course I can talk!" said Jordan. "After all, I am three years old."

    "Why didn't you talk before?" asked Mike.

    "I didn't need to," said Jordan. "The food was always good before."