Bamboo (竹子) is one of nature's (自然) most surprising plants. Many people call this plant a tree, but it is a kind of grass.

       Like other kinds of grass, a bamboo plant may be cut very low to the ground, but it will grow back very quickly. A Japanese scientist reported one bamboo plant which grew 1.5 meters (4 feet) in 24 hours! Bamboo grows almost everywhere in the world except Europe. There are more than 1, 000 kinds of bamboo.

      Not all bamboo looks the same. Some bamboo plants are very thin. They may only grow to be a few centimeters wide while others may grow to more than 30 centimeters (1 foot) across. This plant also comes in different colors, from yellow to black to green.

     Bamboo has been used to make many things such as hats and kitchen tools. Because it is strong, bamboo is also used to build buildings.

     Many Asian countries have used bamboo for hundreds of years. They often use bamboo for buildings and supporting new buildings and bridges while they are being built.

      In Africa, poor farmers are taught how to find water using bamboo. These African countries need cheap way to find water because they have no money, and their crops often die from no rain and no water. Bamboo pipes help poor farmers bring water to their thirsty fields without spending a lot of money.

    Inspiring young minds!

    TOKNOW Magazine is a big hit in the world of children's publishing, bringing a unique combination of challenging ideas and good fun to young fans every month.

    Sounds too good to be true?

    Take a look online—evidence shows that thousands of teachers and parents know a good thing when they see it and recommend TOKNOW to their friends.

    Happy Birthday All Year!

    What could be more fun than a gift that keeps coming through the letterbox every month? The first magazine with your gift message will arrive in time for the special day.

    SUBSCRIBE NOW

    Annual Subscription: Europe £55;    Rest of World £65.

    Annual Subscription with Gift Pack: Includes a Mammoth Map, a Passport Puzzle Booklet, and Subscription. Europe £60;    Rest of World £70.

    Refund Policy—the subscription can be cancelled within 28 days and you can get your money back.

    Losing a wallet is one of those careless acts most of us have come across, at some point or the other in our lives. While most of us tend to move on after mourning over the lost necessities, there are a few lucky ones who get them back, with the help of the police or the generosity of the person who finds it.

    And then there is Hunter Shamatt, who not only got back his wallet but with some added happiness that was tagged along!

    Hunter was on his way to attend his sister's wedding on a Las Vegas-bound flight when he realized that he has misplaced his wallet, sometime during the journey. Hunter's family reached out to the Frontier flight to enquire if someone had handed it over to them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the missing wallet.

    But wait. The story was far from over. Just a week after Hunter's sister's wedding, he received a package in his mail. And guess what? There was his wallet! Surprisingly, the wallet was not the only thing that was inside the package. It also had a handwritten note for Hunter which turned out to be a bonus! The piece of paper read,

"Hunter, Found this on a Frontier flight from Omaha to Denver — row 12, seat F wedged between the seat and wall. Thought you might want it back. All the best.

P.S. I rounded your cash up to an even $100, so you could celebrate getting your wallet back. HAVE FUN!!!"

    Moved by the touching gesture, Hunter's mom, Jeannie Shamatt, decided to write a post on Facebook giving a detailed description of the incident. She also urged everyone to share the post as she would like to meet and greet the person behind the act of kindness, personally.

    Now, thanks to the astonishing power of social media, the post finally reached the man behind the note. The man was identified as Todd Brown and it was one of his co-workers who made sure Jeannie Shamatt's post reaches his colleague. Jeannie turned to Facebook again to thank Brown and his family for restoring her faith in humanity.

    "I try to teach my children to do the right things in life, help people when you can regardless of the outcome. This story is more about restoring faith in people than anything. We hear a lot of bad news but not enough good news. I personally want to thank Todd Brown and his wife for restoring faith that there are amazing people out there."

    It was rainy, and I had no desire to drive up the winding mountain road to my daughter Carolyn's house. But she had insisted that I come to see something at the top of the mountain.

    So here I was, reluctantly making the two-hour journey through fog that hung like veils. By the time I saw how thick it was near the summit, I'd gone too far to turn back.

    Nothing could be worth this, I thought as I inched along the dangerous highway.

    "I'll stay for lunch, but I' m heading back down as soon as the fog lifts," I announced when I arrived.

    "But I need you to drive me to the garage to pick up my car," Carolyn said, "Could we at least do that?"

    "How far is it?" I asked.

    "About three minutes," she said, "I'll drive—I'm used to it."

    After ten minutes on the mountain road, I looked at her anxiously. "I thought you said three minutes."

    She grinned. "This is a detour."

    Turning down a narrow track, we parked the car and got out. We walked along a path that was thick with old pine needles. Huge black-green evergreens towered over us. Gradually, the peace and silence of the place began to fill my mind.

    Then we turned a comer and stopped—and I gasped in amazement.

    From the top of the mountain, sloping for several acres across the mountain side and valleys, were rivers of flowers in numerous colors. It looked as though the sun had tipped over and spilled gold down the mountainside.

    A series of questions filled my mind. Who created such beauty? Why? How?

    As we approached the home that stood in the center of the property, we saw a sign that read: "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking."

    The first answer was: "One Woman—Two Hands, Two Feet, and Very Little Brain." The second was: "One at a Time." The third: "Started in 1958."

    As we drove home, I was so moved by what we had seen. I could scarcely speak. "She changed the world." I finally said, "one bulb (球茎) at a time. She started almost 40 years ago, probably just the beginning of an idea, but she kept at it."

    The wonder of it would not let me go. "Imagine," I said, "if I'd had a vision and worked at it, just a little bit every day, what might I have accomplished?"

    Carolyn looked at me sideways, smiling. "Start tomorrow," she said. "Better yet, start today."

    Samuel Morse was born in Massachusetts USA. He started off his career as an inventor after being a painter and sculptor (雕塑家). He even earned a gold medal from the famous Adelphi Society of Arts for his first effort in sculpture, the "Dying Hercules". He became the first president of the National Academy of Design, and was made Professor of the Arts of Design in the University of the City of New York.

    Yet, this painter turned to inventing to make his fortune during a sea voyage. On this journey, Samuel Morse heard about many attempts to create usable telegraphs. He was fascinated by this problem and began to study books on physics for two years to gain more scientific knowledge. He realized that pulses (脉冲) of electrical current could carry information over wires.

    Thus the world's first working model of a telegraph was born. His signaling device was quite simple. It consisted of a transmitter (containing a battery and a key), a small buzzer (蜂鸣器) as a receiver and a pair of wires connecting the two. Samuel Morse improved it by adding a switch and a second buzzer to allow transmission (传播) in the opposite direction as well.

    On May 24, 1844 Samuel Morse sent the first electronic message between Baltimore and Washington, "Look what God has enabled us to build, and benefit by."

    Seventeen years later, the two coasts of the United States were linked by telegraph. The telegraph continued to enjoy the position of being the fastest and most reliable means of communication for almost 140 years since its invention.

Elizabeth Bishop is considered one of the best American poets of the 20th century. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911. Her dad died when she was just a baby and her mom never recovered from the loss; she went to live with her grandparents in Nova Scotia, Canada when she was five. Eventually Bishop attended Vassar College, where she began to write poetry.

At Vassar she discovered Marianne Moore's poetry and met "Ms. Moore" and began their life-long friendship. She later met poet Robert Lowell. She wrote tons and tons of letters to both of them, which is good for us because we would otherwise know very little of her personal life. Bishop's poetry is sometimes considered objective and cold because it shows almost nothing about the poet or her life.

Bishop published her first book of poetry in 1946 and wrote until her death in 1979. She would spend years working on a single poem. Her poems are not the result of hasty scribbling (匆忙乱写) on paper while eating breakfast. Over a lifetime of writing, she only published about 275 pages of poetry, and about 40 of those are translations. She would look through drafts of poems again and again and improve them until they were as close to perfect as she could get them.

Reading Elizabeth Bishop is like being transported to the very place, the very moment she's writing about. She leads us to a microscope so we can see every smallest part of the scene. It seems she's always asking us to notice more, and more until the poem is so clear in our minds that it's almost painful — like a light that's too bright. It might take your eyes a while to get used to it, but once they do, you'll like what you see.