Once upon a time, there was an owl(猫头鹰) in the middle of a dark forest. All the animals knew that he was the wisest among 1 of them. So they often went to him and told him their problems. Then the owl always told them 2 to solve their problems.

    One day, a little bird came to the owl. She was 3.

  “What's wrong with you?” asked the owl.

  “I'm not happy at all, Mr. Owl. I don't want to be a bird any more.” the bird 4.

  “Why don't you want to be a(n) 5?” asked the owl.

  “Because I am so small and weak,” she cried. “I want to be as big and strong as the lion. He is important, but I am not. ”

    Then the owl said 6 in her ear. Then the bird dried her tears and 7 away. One week later, the bird came back. “Thank you very much, Mr. Owl. You are so 8,”she said to the owl. “I'm very happy now. Every day, I watch out for （监视）lions and tigers.  9 they come near, I shout as loudly as I can. Then they all run and hide. They often 10 me for that. I am useful and important now. ”

    The wise owl smiled and said: “Dear, no one in the world is useless.”

    A man sat at an underground station in Washington, D.C., and started to play the violin. It was a cold day in January. He played six Bach（巴赫）pieces for about 45 minutes. It was rush hour and thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

    Three minutes went by and the first person, a middle-aged man, noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed down and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

    After a minute, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a young woman threw the money in the box and continued to walk. Then another few minutes went by and someone stood against the wall to listen to him, but the young man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

    During the musician's performance, only six people stopped and stayed for a while, twenty gave him money but continued to walk. When he finished playing, no one applauded（鼓掌）. No one knew the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world.

    This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing in the underground station was organized by The Washington Post（《华盛顿邮报》）as part of a social experiment. One of the conclusions from this experiment could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music, how many other things are we missing?

    There is a park near my home. People like to go to this park after work. Some of them go to the park every day. Look! This is Mr. King. He is sitting on a chair and watching the children. Some children are playing a game. Some boys are playing football. Lucy and Lily are standing under a big tree. They are talking about their favorite movies. There is a small river in the park. We can see some boats on the water. Some children are sitting in the boats with their parents. Listen! A girl is singing. It's really a nice park. I come here every day.

    Huang Qingyun spends her life telling stories to children. Now though she is in her nineties, she has no plans to stop.

    "I did this for children, from the first day I started to write stories. I am old now, but I still want to go on telling stories to children," Huang said.

    Born in Guangzhou in 1920. Huang spent her childhood in Hong Kong and her favourite hobby was making up stories for her elder sister.

    In 1935, Huang went to university and studied Chinese. During this period, she was greatly influenced by the well-known Chinese educator Tao Xingzhi and decided to become a primary school teacher. However, instead of being a teacher. Huang found another way to educate children. During World War Ⅱ, Huang often told stories to homeless children at the Little Children Society, a charity (慈善机构) set up by a professor from the University of Hong Kong.

    Huang also started a column (专栏) called "Sister Yun's Mail Box" in Xin Er Tong, a children's magazine set up in Hong Kong in 1941. From then, Huang officially started writing and created a large number of stories for children. Huang spent about 30 years at the magazine working as chief editor (主编) in Guangzhou.

    Huang retired in 1987. She moved to Hong Kong and went on creating stories for children, including I Love Hong Kong, Children from Hong Kong and Shoes Brothers.

    "What l wrote were all for children, and for me, writing fairy tales is my favourite," Huang said.

 My son Laurie came home at the first lunchtime from the kindergarten* and shouted," Isn't anybody here?" " How was school today?" I asked." All right," he said." Did you learn anything?" his father asked. Laurie answered coldly," I didn't learn nothing." 

" But the teacher spanked* a boy," Laurie said," For being fresh*," he added, with his mouth full." What did he do?" I asked." Who was it?" Laurie thought." It was Charles." he said.

 The next day, as soon as he sat down at lunch," Well, Charles was bad again today. He said." Today Charles hit the teacher The next few days, Laurie still came home with tons of bad stories about Charles.

 During the third and fourth weeks it looked like a change in Charles. Laurie reported kindlessly," Charles was so good today the teacher gave him an apple." " What?" I said, and my husband added unbelievably," You mean Charles?" " Charles, Laurie said." He gave the crayons around and picked up the books and the teacher said he was her helper." zksq620

" Can this be true, about Charles?" I asked my husband." Can something like this happen?" " Wait and see," my husband said cynically*. Within a week, everything was back to normal and Charles was his usual, terrible self.

" The Parent meeting's next week," I told my husband one evening." I'm going to find Charles's mother there." " Ask her what happened to Charles," my husband said." I'd like to know." " I'd like to know myself'I said.

 At the meeting, I looked over the faces of all the other mothers. None of them looked unhappy enough to be the mother of Charles. No one stood up and apologised for the way her son had been acting.

 After the meeting, I found Laurie's teacher." I' ve been wanting to meet you," I said." I'm Laurie's mother." " Oh, yes," she said." We' re all so interested in Laurie." " He certainly likes kindergarten" I said." He talks about it all the time." " He's had some trouble getting used to school," she said." But I think he' ll be all right." " Laurie usually fits in quickly, I said." I suppose his trouble might be from Charles' influence." " Charles? the teacher said." Yes, I said, laughing." You must have your hands full with Charles." " Charles?" she said." We    don't    have    any    Charles    in    kindergarten."