Hans Christian Andersen(安徒生)

    Hans Christian Andersen is a great writer. He wrote many popular stories for children all over the world. April 2 is his birthday and it is also Children's Book Day.

    Andersen was born(出生) in 1805. When he was a little boy, his father read him a story every day. He felt very happy at that time. But his father died when he was 11 years old. Then he had to leave school. Andersen started working as an actor and singer. He loved reading books so much that he went back to school at 17. His first book came out in 1835. From then on, he wrote about one book a year for 37 years.

    There will be a park about Andersen's sales(传说) and life in Shanghai. If you like Andersen, you can go there to learn about his life and tales, and you can play games, too.

    Mr Black was a businessman （商人） and he was very rich （有钱的）.One day he went on a trip to the countryside with his 5-year-old son Henry. He wanted to show his son how poor people lived, so they spent a day and a night on the farm of a very poor family.

    When they got back from their trip, Mr Black asked Henry, “My dear son, how was your trip?”“Very good, dad!”“Did you see how poor people lived?”the father asked. “Yes!” “And what did you learn?”Henry answered, “We have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that is in the middle of the garden and they have a river that has no end. We have expensive lamps (灯) in the garden and they have stars.”

    When little Henry finished, Mr Black was speechless(无话可说的).

    Birds live in trees. Squirrels(松鼠) live in trees. But do you know that some frogs（青蛙） live in trees, too?

    The tree frogs are hard to find. They can change color. On green leaves, they stay green. On a branch, they keep brown. Some tree frogs can change from green to gold or blue.

    Tree frogs have legs and wide feet. They have sticky pads (肉趾) at the end of their toes（脚趾）. These sticky toe pads keep the tree frogs from falling off.

    Tree frogs have different colors and markings on their skins(皮肤). Their eyes are different, too. Some have green eyes, some gray. Some frogs' eyes are gold, and some are bright red.

    The sounds they made in spring and summer are different, too. One frog makes a sound like a dog barking(狗叫). Another frog makes a loud noise like a snore（打呼噜）. There is even a frog that whistles（吹口哨）!

    Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh(1853-1890) killed himself by shooting himself in the chest(胸膛).

    This is what van Gogh himself told his brother, the doctors and the police just before he died.

    However, in a new book Van Gogh: The Life, two Pulitzer (普利策奖) Prize-winning authors, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, argue that van Gogh may have been murdered. They believed that the artist was protecting a 16-year-old boy named Rene Secret, who shot him accidentally.

    Van Gogh's statement that he shot himself was accepted because he had been mentally unstable(精神状况不稳的) for two years. He suffered from psychotic(精神病的) attacks and imagined things that were not really happening. Art critics (评论家) believe that his unstable mental state is shown in his work, describing his style of painting as shaken. Some of his most famous paintings, such as The Starry Night, were produced during this period.

    Van Gogh is among a number of creative minds who suffered from mental health problems. In fact, mental illness is so common among famous creative figures that scientists have studied whether there is link between creativity and insanity(精神错乱). Research began in the 1970s, but the idea that an unstable mind could be linked to creative genius(天才) was already around in ancient Greece.

    Some scientists believe mental illness, in its more manageable state, gives artists creativity. Research has found that doing creative activities can also be therapeutic(有疗效的) for people suffering from mental illness. Painting, writing, or making something can be a positive way for people to express their thoughts.

    Watching some children trying to catch butterflies one August afternoon, I thought of my unforgettable experience in my own childhood. When I was a boy of twelve in South Carolina, something happened to me that made me never put any wild creature in a cage.

We lived near a forest, and every evening at dusk the mockingbirds would come and rest in the trees and sing. Their singing is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

    I decided that I would catch a young bird and keep it in a cage and in that way, I would have my own private musician.

    I finally succeeded in catching a young bird and put it in a cage. At first, being frightened, the bird fluttered(扑腾) in the cage, but finally it settled down in its new home. I felt very pleased with myself and looked forward to some beautiful singing rom my little musician.

    On the second day, my new pet's mother flew to the cage with food in her mouth. The baby bird ate everything she brought to it. I was pleased to see this. Certainly the mother knew better than I how to feed her baby.

    The following morning when I went to see the bird again, I found it on the floor of the cage, dead. I was terribly surprised! What had happened! I had taken good care of my little bird.

    Arthur Wayne, the famous ornithologist, who happened to be visiting my father at the time, hearing me crying over the death of my bird, explained what had happened. "Mother mockingbird, finding her young in a cage, will sometimes bring it poisonous berries(毒莓). She thinks it better for her young to die than to live in a cage."

    Since then I have never caught any living creature and put it in a cage. All living creatures have a right to live free.