Camilla Chomp was a strange little girl. She liked to spend her time alone eating chocolate. Her parents were worried, so they tookall the chocolate away.

    Camilla left her house to look for some chocolate. She found a small house full of bottles. Among the bottles, a blue bottle caught Camilla's eyes. It was full of chocolate. In the bottle there was also a card with the words "Changetears(眼泪) into chocolate."

    Camilla was very excited.She ran out of the house with the bottle to look for someone crying. First, she met a little boy crying hard and collected his tears. The tears were quickly changed into chocolate. While Camillawas collecting the tears, she comforted the boy. Finally, the boy stopped crying and they had a good time together.

    Later, Camilla met a woman and an old man crying. The woman had broken some bowls. And the old man's dog had just died. Camilla collected their tears and made them happy again.

    Soon, Camilla knew that making people happy was much more important than finding chocolate. So she stopped collecting tears and began to help sad people. As a result, she had many friends and had a happy life.

The summer vacation started on June 26th. Jerry wanted to find a job in the city. One day he saw an advertisement(广告) in a window. It said, "Wanted: The best salesman(推销人员) in the world. Top Pay."

    "I'm a great salesman," Jerry said to himself. "I'm sure that I can sell anything. I'll go in and ask for that job."

    So Jerry went into the building. He saw a manager in it. He said to the manager, "Good morning. I saw your advertisement. I think I'm the best salesman in the world. Give me the job, please."

    "You must prove(证明)that you're the best," the manager said.

    "I'll pass every test that you give me," Jerry said.

    "Good," the manager said, and he took a box of sweets out of his desk. "Last week I bought a thousand boxes of the sweets. If you can sell them all before the end of the week, you can have the job."

    "That's easy," Jerry said.

    He took the boxes of sweets and left the office.

    Every day and all day he went from shop to shop, trying to sell boxes of the sweets. But he couldn't sell one. The sweets were so bad that he couldn't even sell them.

    At the end of the week, he went back to the manager. "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "I was wrong about myself. I'm not the best salesman in the world, but I know who is."

    "Oh," said the manager. "Who do you think is the best?"

    "The person who sold you a thousand boxes of the sweets."

    "Why do I live? Why do I wish for anything, or do anything? Is there anything in my life that will not be destroyed by my death?" Like Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian writer, many people ask these difficult questions. Tolstoy spent his whole life trying to answer these difficult questions.

    As a young man, he thought people could achieve perfection if they tried hard enough. So he worked very hard to be the best in everything. He thought that he would find meaning and truth in success.

    In 1850s. Tolstoy wrote his first stories. He wrote about his life in the army. He also told stories about his childhood. These works were published and Tolstoy became a well-known writer.

    He earned the respect he always wanted. Many rich and smart men met and talked with Tolstoy. Some of them were writers like him. They talked a lot about faith (信仰) and the meaning of life. But soon Tolstoy recognized that these men were not perfect. Now he knew they could not answer his questions about faith.

    So in the 1860s, Tolstoy tried a different way to find the meaning of life. He opened a school for the children of his serfs-the people who worked on his land. These workers were very poor. He wanted to help them because he thought they were more honest than the rich people he knew.

    Tolstoy learned a lot from his workers. He understood how they worked hard to support their families. He began to believe that marriage and family would give his life meaning. So in 1862, Leo Tolstoy married a young woman named Sonya Behrs.

    The next 15 years were the best years of Tolstoy's life. It was during this time that he wrote his most famous books-War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Many experts say that War and Peace is one of the greatest books ever written. In these books, Tolstoy believed humans should live a simple life and take care of their families. Tolstoy thought this would satisfy him and bring him happiness.

    Leo Tolstoy is still a very respected writer today. His faith and writings have influenced many people all over the world.

    Athena was born and raised in Ukraine. Her parents wanted her to become a lawyer or a doctor. But she always knew she wanted to paint. She also realized a career in painting would not be possible if she stayed in her country.

    Even though she was painting in her whole life and it was her passion(热情)but it was only a hobby. And she never really took it to the next level because back in the country all the artists were hungry artists. So she knew for some reason she never took art as a career because she would never be able to make money and be successful in it in several years.

    So. Athena came to the United States when she was 14 years old to pursue(追求)an American Dream. She was clear on her goal. Athena first worked at a health food shop. She began to paint on the shop's menu boards. A customer praised her skill and asked if she would help paint faces at street fairs. Athena says it was a good start. Then she went to FABAIC to start body painting.

    Body painting is quite different from plain painting. And she loves it very much. She says. "With body, you work with the people factor and it's not only you. Maybe they want to talk or move, and they cannot stand still for several days while the painting will last three to four days. When I paint. I can't stop."

    Mary is an American girl. She is now in Beijing with her parents. Mary doesn't know much Chinese, but she is studying it. She often speaks Chinese with her Chinese friends. Sometimes they can't understand her, because she can't speak Chinese very well.

    It's Saturday morning. She goes out. She is walking in the street. She wants to go to the zoo to see the elephants and monkeys, but she doesn't know how to get there. She asks a Chinese boy the way. The boy can't understand her. Then she takes out a pen and a piece of paper. She draws an elephant on it, and shows the picture to the boy. The boy understands, and shows her the way to the zoo.