Kumiko And The Dragon

    Author: Briony Stewart

    Price: $16.95

    Kumiko is a little girl, who likes to listen to her obasaan's stories before going to bed. But she hates sleeping alone at night. She often begs to sleep with her mother but her mother won't hew(坚持)of it. Each day, bedtime is hard for little Kumiko as she walks upstairs with heavy steps and her frightened heart beats wildly.

    Roti Rolled Away

    Author: Anti Utarid   Price: S9. 10

    It takes place in India. Asha of about nine visits her Nard(grandmother)on top of a hill Her Nani has just made hot fresh Rotis and the Roti is given to Asha to eat. However, the Rot escapes Nannis hands and begins to roll out into the great big hills.

    The Alchemist

    Author: Paulo Coeho   Price: $8.83

    This book is about a Spaniard shepherd boy. Santiago has a dream about hidden treasure at the Egyptian Pyramids.

    The Cay

    Author: Theodore Taylor    Price:UK 5.9 pounds

    Set during the Second World War. The Cay is about the adventures of Philip who set off from the island of Curacao off the Venezuelan coast, with his mother, bound for Virginia. First published in 1969, this book has won eleven literary award and has been translated into fifteen.

    A sunflower is a sunflower. A mobile phone is a mobile phone. But can you combine the two to do something for your local environment? As early as next year it may well be possible. When you have finished with your mobile phone you will be able to bury it in a garden or a plant pot and wait for it to flower.

    A biodegradable (生物所能分解的) mobile phone was, this month, introduced by scientists. It is hoped that the new type of phone will encourage consumers to recycle.

    Scientists have come up with a new material over the last five years. It looks like any other plastic and can be hard or soft, and is able to change shape. Over time it can also break down into the soil without giving out any poisonous chemicals. British researchers used the new material to develop a phone cover that contains a sunflower seed. When this new type of cover turns into waste, it forms fertilizers. These feed the seed and help the flower grow.

    Engineers have designed a small transparent (透明的) window to hold the seed. They have made sure it only grows when the phone is throw n away. “We've only put sunflower seeds into the covers so far. But we are working with plant experts to find out which flowers would perform best. Maybe we could put roses in next time.” said one scientist.

    As phone technology is developing so quickly, people are constantly throwing their mobiles away. This means manufacturers are under pressure to find ways of recycling them. Some 650 million mobile phones have been sold this year. Most of them will be throw n away within two years, adding plastic, heavy metal and chemical waste to the environment. A biodegradable cover can offer some relief for nature, according to the scientists.

    “The seed comes out and the flower grows in the pot so you don't have to concern yourself with the phone when you have finished using it,” said Kerry Kirwan. She leads the research team, which is based at the University of Warwick in Britain.

    My friend, Jack, was a taxi driver. We became friends quite by accident. Five years ago, I made a trip to Chicago. The moment I stepped into a cab, I realized it was different. The floor was covered with a rug (小地毯). There were small reproductions of paintings by Van Gogh inside the cab. And the windows were spotless. I told the driver I had never ridden in a more attractive taxi.

    "I like to hear my passengers say that," he replied. "How long have you been decorating your cab?" I asked. "It's not mine," he said. "It's a company cab. I hit upon the idea years ago when I worked as a clean-up man for the taxi company. Each car that came in at the end of the day was like a garbage pit. Cigarette butts and matches covered the floor. Sticky stuff like peanut butter was on the seats or door handles. I thought that if the company and the drivers would give people a car worth keeping clean, they might be more considerate."

    "As soon as I got my taxi license, I tried out my ideas. I put a lot of extra decorations into the cab they gave me to drive. I got a nice rug and some flowers. When each passenger got out, I checked to make sure that everything was in order for the next fare. After about a month of my bringing in a spotless cab, the boss reserved the same car for me each day. That was when I put up the reproductions of great paintings."

    "I've never been disappointed by people in the past ten years—no garbage. Like I say, people appreciate beautiful things. If we planted more flowers and trees in the city and made the buildings more attractive, more people would tend to keep the city clean."

    Later, we became good friends. I was impressed by the taxi-driver, who had hit on a great truth—a sense of beauty comes with the gift of life. Most people don't have to be instructed about the rarity of beauty. They respond when they find it. And, if they are made to feel a part of it, they will try to add to it.

    The deadliest Ebola(埃博拉病毒) outbreak in recorded history is happening right now. The outbreak is unprecedented(空前的) both in the number of people who have gotten sick and in the geographic scope. And so far it's been a long battle that doesn't appear to be slowing down.

    Ebola is both rare and very deadly. Since the first outbreak in 1976, Ebola viruses have infected thousands of people and killed roughly 60 percent of them. Symptoms can come on quickly and kill fast.

    The current outbreak started in Guinea sometime in late 2013 or early 2014. It has since spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia, including some capital cities. And one infected patient traveled on a plane to Nigeria, where he spread the disease to several others and then died. Cases have also popped up in various other countries throughout the world, including in Dallas and New York City in the United States.

    The Ebola virus has now hit many countries, including Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, and the United States. The virus, which starts off with flu-like symptoms and sometimes ends with bleeding, has infected about 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000 since this winter, according to the World Health Organization on September 30, 2014.

    There are some social and political factors contributing to the current disaster. Because this is the first major Ebola outbreak in West Africa, many of the region's health workers didn't have experience or training in how to protect themselves or care for patients with this disease.

    Journalist David Quammen put it well in a recent New York Times article, "Ebola is more dangerous to humans than perhaps any known virus on Earth, except rabies(狂犬病) and HIV. And it does its damage much faster than either."

Hopefully, researchers are working to find drugs, including a recent $50 million push at the National Institutes of Health. And scientists are working on vaccines(疫苗), including looking into ones that might be able to help wild chimpanzees, which are also susceptible to the disease. The first human Ebola vaccine trial is scheduled to start in the spring of 2015.

    Just what is a tiger mother？Amy Chua is a law professor at America's Yale University and her recent book on the subject is making waves. She's been called "dangerous", "outrageous", even a "monster" for her descriptions of how she brought up her two daughters.

    Her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother describes fighting with a daughter for hours at the piano to ensure the child gets a piece of music right. She rejected birthday cards made for her by her girls because she didn't think they had made enough effort. She compared one child negatively with the other, threatening to burn their toys. Her rules include：schoolwork always comes first; an A ­ minus is a bad grade; children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math, and playing the violin or the piano is a must.

    Ms. Chua considers the Chinese hard work ethic(道德) as a way of creating happy, successful children—at least in her case. Although she's had a large amount of flak for her theories, one thing can't be ignored—the success of Chinese children in the education system.

    In Britain, shocking research shows that Chinese girls, for example, are outperforming all other foreign groups at GCSE—79 percent getting 5 A ­ C Grades, compared with 58 percent of white British girls. So what is it about Chinese parenting that's leading to high achievers？And how do Amy Chua's theories play into that success?

    She told me that if her daughter came back from school with 96/100 in a test, Chua would ask her what happened to the other 4 points. It's about always knowing "you can do better", she told me.

    Interestingly, in China, the birthplace of the tiger mother, people are moving away from traditional Chinese parenting. They are following more western parenting styles.

    Young mums shopping in the Copley Mall in downtown Boston-month found themselves being questioned about their use of soap by students from Harvard Business School usually known as HBS. The students were not doing odd jobs to earn beer money. They were preparing to help a firm in Brazil launch an antibacterial cleanser.

    The 900 students arriving in Boston this summer for their two-year course were told that they would be subjects. The new practical addition to HBS's curriculum is known as "FIELD" that stands for Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development. Fieldwork — ie, going out and talking to people — is a big change for HBS.

    Not all the staff and students were overjoyed to be experimented on. But the man responsible, Nitin Nohria, head of HBS, says that "If it works, the FIELD method could become an equal partner to the case method."

    What happens in the second year of the new course is still being worked out. But the first year has three elements. First, team-building exercises. Students take turns to lead a group engaged in a project. They learn to cooperate and to give and take feedback. Second, students will be sent to work for a week with one of more than 140 firms in 11 countries. In the third part of the course, students will be given eight weeks, and seed money of ＄3,000 each, to launch a small company. The most successful, as voted by their fellow students, will get more funding. The experiment does not come cheap, adding 5-10% to the course's cost, which HBS will bear while it figures out what works.