Long, long ago there lived an old man. He had a very big orange tree in his garden. On the tree there were many fine{#blank#}1{#/blank#} .

    One day the old man found one of the oranges was bigger than the others. It was as big as a watermelon. So he took the biggest orange to the king. The king was very{#blank#}2{#/blank#} and gave the old man a lot of money for it.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}a rich man heard of this, he said to himself, "It is only an orange. Why did the king give him so much money? If I take my gold cup to the king, he will give me much more money for it. "

The next day when the king got the gold cup, he said to the rich man, "What a beautiful cup! l'll give you {#blank#}4{#/blank#} for it. Please take the great orange. "

    John James Audubon loved all kinds of birds. He spent his life studying them. He painted all the birds of North America.

    John James Audubon was born in Haiti in 1785. When he was a young boy, he moved to France with his family. His father was in the French Navy. He had a farm in the United States. When John was 18, his father sent him to the farm, hoping John would take care of it. But John didn't want to do that. He wanted to hunt, fish, and draw birds. John drew lots of pictures of birds. He wanted to make them look real.

    In 1808, John married Lucy Bakewell and they moved to Kentucky. John and a friend went into business there. They ran a shop. John really didn't like working in the shop. The business soon failed. John wanted to paint full-time. Lucy agreed to help. She got a teaching job to support the family. By that time, they had two young sons.

    John wanted his bird paintings made into a book. He finally did find someone to print his bird pictures in a book. Many people wanted John Audubon's book. Although his book was a great success, John wasn't happy with it. He wanted to show every bird found in North America. By 1838, John finished a great work. It wasn't just one book. It was an amazing set of four books called The Birds of America. It had many paintings. Today, these paintings are very famous.

    Have you ever ridden a Ferris wheel lately? Can you imagine the flying feeling as you are pulled up to the top and then moved down to the bottom quickly again?

    Today a Ferris wheel is usually 40 to 60 feet tall. That seems very high when you are on the top looking down. But the first Ferris wheel was 264 feet high- taller than a twenty-story building! Can you imagine the view from the top of that?

    The first Ferris wheel was built for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The people who planned the fair were looking for an attraction that would bring people to Chicago. George Ferris handed a drawing of a giant wheel that people could ride on. At first everyone laughed at his strange idea. But Mr Ferris did not give up, and finally the idea was accepted. The ride opened in June of 1893.

    Today's Ferris wheels have 12 to 16 seats, which each carry 2 or 3 people. But that first one had 36 enclosed cars, each holding 60 passengers. When filled, it carried 2,160 people. During that summer in Chicago, about 1.5 million people rode the Ferris wheel.

After the fair, the ride was moved to a nearby amusement park built especially to show off the wheel. In 1904, it was moved again一to St. Louis for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. After the fair there, the wheel stood unused. In 1906, it was finally sold to a company for scrap metal(废金属).

    Luckily a Chicago bridge builder, W.E. Sullivan, figured out how to make a smaller Ferris wheel that could easily be taken apart and put together. In 1906, he started the company that still makes many of the Ferris wheels used today.

    But, whenever you ride one, remember that it all began with George Ferris's strange idea!

We usually have three meals a day——breakfast, lunch and dinner. Different people have different food for breakfast. Some children tell us about their breakfast food. 

Simon is an American boy. He usually eats cakes and drinks milk with sugar (糖) for breakfast. He loves sugar. He is short. He doesn't like to drink juice for breakfast.

Jack is from the UK. He usually has bread and a glass of juice for breakfast. His favorite is apple juice, but his family like orange juice. They usually have eggs and hamburgers. 

Lucy is a Chinese girl. She usually has soup (汤) and baozi with meat for breakfast. She doesn't have bread and cakes for breakfast.