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      The British King George was quite naughty (淘气) when he was a child. He spent all his pocket money on toys. His grandma, the Victoria Queen, worried about that. One day, George went out to play and he wanted to buy a toy horse in a shop. But the toy horse was 25 pounds and George had no money at that time. So after he went back, he wrote a letter to his grandma,"Dear granny, I would like to buy a toy horse. Will you send 25 pounds to me?"

       However, his grandma wrote back to him, "You have got too many toys, and I will not give you the money to buy toys any more. Now you should learn to save up."

       A few days later, his grandma got the second letter from George,"Dear granny, thanks for your letter. I sold it to a collector (收藏家) and bought that toy horse with the money."

    He is quiet and shy. He likes to hide his eyes behind his hair. He doesn't smile very often. However, if you talk to him about music, he'll have a lot to say.

This is Jay Chou, the 24-year-old Taiwanese pop king(天王). His fans are so excited because he will sing songs in Beijing on September 12. Those songs are from his new album(唱片), "Ye Huimei", and the album was released(发行) in July and was named after his mother.

    Chou grew up just with his mother. He did not talk much and did badly in many school subjects.

His mother noticed the boy's special interest in music and sent him to learn piano when he was only three years old. He loved it and kept on practicing.

Chou is not very handsome. He does not speak clearly when he sings or talks. But the singer has huge crowds of fans. "He is really good at music. It makes him attractive(有魅力的) to me," said Liu Jiajun, a Junior 2 student in NO.101 Middle School in Beijing.

    "He is true to himself. He never follows others," said Zhang Yujie, a Junior l girl at Huaibei Middle School in Sihon9, Jiangsu Province.

    Alice Brown lives in New York with her mum and dad and two brothers, Tony and Peter. It is Alice's fourteen birthday next week. The family has got two dogs, a cat and four rabbits. Alice likes cats and rabbits but her brothers like dogs. Alice's dad works in a hotel. He's a hotel manager. Her mum teaches English at a junior high school.

    Alice and her brothers study at the same school, but they are in different grades. She's in Grade Seven. Her brother Tony is in Grade Ten and Peter is in Grade Six. They live in a flat near the school. They walk to school together every day.

    Alice is interested in computers. At home she plays computer games in her free time.

    My father was 44 and knew he wasn't going to make it to 45. He wrote me a letter and hoped that something in it would help me for the rest of my life.

    Since the day I was 12 and first read his letter, some of his words have lived in my heart. One part always stands out. "Right now, you are pretending to be a time killer. But I know that one day, you will do something great that will set you among the very best." Knowing that my dad believed in me gave me permission to believe in myself. "You will do something great." He didn't know what would be, and neither did I, but at times in my life when I've felt proud of myself , I remember his words and wish he were here so I could ask, "Is this what you were talking about , Dad ? Should I keep going ?"

A long way from 12 now, I realize he would have been proud when I made any progress. Lately, though, I've come to believe he would want me to move on to what comes next: to be proud of , and believe in , somebody else. It's time to start writing my own letters to my children . Our children look to us with the same unanswered question we had. Our kids don't hold back because they're afraid to fail. They're only afraid of failing us. They don't worry about being disappointed. Their fear —as mine was until my father's letter —is of being a disappointment .

    Give your children permission to succeed. They're waiting for you to believe in them. I always knew my parents loved me. But trust me：That belief will be more complete , that love will be more real, and their belief in themselves will be greater if you write the words on their hearts："Don't worry; you'll do something great ." Not having that blessing from their parents may be the only thing holding them back.

    Want to say "hello" from Disneyland? Send a post card!

    Beautiful scenes（戏剧）of paradise (乐园),wild animals, silly pictures — you can find them all in one place. Where? On a post card! Have people always sent post cards? No. Before post cards, people liked sealed letters.

    The idea for the first decorated (装饰) post card came to John P. Charlton in 1861. He thought a simple card with decorations would be a great way to send a note. Then in the late 1800s, post cards with pictures appeared. By law, people had to write their note on the front ——on the picture! The back was only for the address. Several years later, England allowed a divided-back post card. Then people could write their note on the back left side and put the address on the right. During the early 1900s, the golden age of post cards, picture post cards became a craze of the world. In 1908, Americans alone mailed over 677 million post cards. Today, post cards are the third most popular collection in the world after stamps and coins.