Teens Spring Events at San Francisco Public Library

    GREAT TEEN BOOK SWAP

    Sunday, March 19, 2017— 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

    FREE book! Just leave us a review.

    Here's how it works: Every Thursday, the librarian will bring out several books and allow teens the chance to look through them for one that you'd like to keep. You will, in turn, swap us a review of the book by the end of the month.

    For ages 12— 18.

    For more information, contact Dorcas at dorcas.wong@sfpl.org.

    THE MIX BOOK CLUB!

    Sunday, March 19, 2017— 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

    Teens aged 13— 18 are welcome to The Mix at SFPL Book Club! We read a different book each month that you help choose. This month we're reading The Sun is Also A Star, by Nicola Yoon. New members and drop-ins are always welcome!

    For more information, please e-mail catherine.cormier@sfpl.org or call (415)557-4404.

    THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY HENRY JAMES

    Sunday, March 19, 2017— 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

    Please join Chinatown's World Literature Book Club for an enjoyable discussion of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. This famous novel follows the young, free-spirited heiress, Isabel Archer, as she travels from New York to Europe.

    CARTOONING & GRAPHIC NOVEL WORKSHOP

    Saturday, March 25, 2017— 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

    Join teaching artist and cartoonist Aaron Southerland for a cartooning and graphic novel workshop. Students will learn to create their very own cartoon and comic characters through advanced drawing techniques.

    This is a Reading, Writing & Poetry program from SFPL. We love reading/ sharing/ creating words.

    Awarding wining film Ballad From Tibet(《天籁梦想》) by Chinese director Zhang Wei is scheduled to premiere in New York City on Saturday, March 10.

    The film, which tells the story of four visually impaired kids from China's Tibet autonomous region embarking on a journey for their dreams, will be presented at the Bronx Library Center on Saturday, at Mid-Manhattan Library on Sunday, at Lehman College and Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on Tuesday, and at the Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday.

    Based on a true story, Ballad from Tibet is about the four 1ibetan kids—Thupten, Sonam, Kelsang and Droma—achieving their dreams against all odds.

    Thupten is a 10-year-old boy partially sighted in one eye and blind in the other. His doctor says that there is a chance he could completely lose his sight, but there is an operation that could offer a 50 percent chance of saving his vision.

    His teacher firmly suggests that he should have the operation right away, but Thupten is afraid and wants to see the world before his life is plunged into total darkness.

    Along with his three friends who also suffer from blindness, Thupten embarks on an exciting adventure. Together they decide to go to Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province, a city more than 37,000 km away from Tibetan regional capital Lhasa.

    The reason for the children's decision to go to Shenzhen is their love of music. They are all talented and want to sing their hearts out in front of national audience by participating in a Shenzhen-based reality show.

    The foursome's trip is indeed fun, but also turns out to be dangerous as well. Luckily, help is on hand along the way in the form of a wandering family, a shepherd, a motorcycle club, and a TV producer's assistant.

    Ballad From Tibet has won the award for Best Children's Feature at the 13th China International Children's Film Festival in November 2017, and earned nominations at 17 different international children's film festivals in Germany, Canada, Japan, Greece, Australia and India.

    In 2012 my wife and I decided to open our bookstore in spite of unfavorable situations. The challenges facing small bookstores were-and remain-significant. Apart from the obvious rise in online selling, the increase in the popularity of e-books has negatively affected independent providers.

    The question is why a new, small-scale（小规模的）provide would voluntarily enter such a challenging market? From a personal view, our reasoning was sound: we wanted to share our love of great books and reading for pleasure with as many like-minded people as possible.

    Having done our homework, one thing became clear. In order for us to succeed, we would have to offer something that none of our larger competitors already provided. And so we started the Willoughby Book Club. We set up our website in the summer of 2012, and we haven't looked back.

    The idea of service is simple. We offer a range of book subscription gift packages, available in three-month, six-month and 12-month options. Our customers choose a package, tell us a little about the person they're buying it for, and we use this information to send the receiver a hand-picked, gift-wrapped book once a month. We also recently decided to give one new book to Book Aid International for every gift subscription sold. These books are sent out to sub-Saharan Africa, supporting the educational work there. Within four months of starting out, we won the Young Bookseller of the Year Award at the 2013 Bookseller awards.

    Our brief journey from new booksellers to award receivers has been challenging and rewarding. The biggest thing we've learned is that, despite the pressures facing independent providers, there is a place for them in the UK market. It's just a question of finding it.

    I was deeply moved by the kindness of an elderly flower seller at Sydney's Central Station one evening.

    I was feeling as cold as the winter winds quickening the steps of the people who buried chins (下巴) in scarves and hands deep into coat pockets. In many ways, 2018 had proven an arduous year. My teenage daughter had left home for university, my job of 23 years was no more, and a creative project I'd given my all to for years had also been suddenly called off. I also found out a person I considered a friend was far from it.

    A year earlier, I'd dreamt about an earthquake. In the dream, a red light flashed inside a building and then the earth began to rock. Walls fell down on me as I ran into the open, feeling sorry for the people I hadn't loved enough. Before I was buried completely by the falling world, I shouted, "Abuelo, ayudame," in my native Spanish. "Grandfather, help me!"

    Now, with the very real aftershocks of a series of unexpected endings, I walked into a little flower shop to buy a gift for a friend. The gentleman at the shop looked at me and turned away for a moment, returning with a fragrant flower. "For you. You need to smile today," he said in a rich and beautiful accent, offering me the flower with eyes full of care. It took all my strength not to cry. Then he gave me a grandfatherly hug that made me want to tell him everything.

    Instead, I thanked him and headed for the train. How did he know? I wondered. For the first time in weeks, I felt hope.

Babies are surrounded by human language, always listening and processing. Eventually, they put sounds together to produce a "Daddy" or a "Mama". But what still confuses neuroscientists is exactly how the brain works to put it all together.

To figure it out, a team of researchers turned to a frequent stand-in (代替) for babies when it comes to language learning: the song-learning zebra finch. "We've known songbirds learn their song by first forming a memory of their father's song or another adult's song. Then they use that memory to guide their song learning," said Neuroscientist Todd Roberts. "It's been a long-term goal of the field to figure out how or where in the brain this memory is. This type of imitative learning that birds do is very similar to the type of learning that we engage in regularly—particularly when we're young, we use it to guide our speech learning."

Roberts and his team had a feeling that the interface (交叉区域) between sensory areas and motor areas in the brain was critical for this process, and they focused on a group of brain cells called the NIf.

"In order to prove that we could identify these circuits, we thought if we could implant a false memory." First, they used a virus to cause the neurons (神经元) in the birds' NIf to become sensitive to light. Then, using a tiny electrode as a flashlight, they activated (激活) the neurons. The length of each pulse of light corresponded with the amount of time the neurons would fire. And the birds' brains interpreted that time period as the length of each note.

Soon enough, the birds began to practice the notes they had learned, even though they never really heard the sounds. Amazingly, the birds produced them in the correct social situations. The researchers say this is the first time anybody has found exactly a part of the brain necessary for generating the sorts of memories needed to copy sounds.

"This line of research is going to help us identify where in the brain we encode memories of relevant social experiences that we use to guide learning. We know that there are several neurodevelopmental disorders in people that have really far-reaching effects on this type of learning."