A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.

    A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.

    There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two - headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying hi story. I find such people, I must say so peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girlfriend.

    No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.

    I grew up without a father. Well, sort of. My parents divorced (离婚) in the 1960s when I was a small child, and I stayed with my mother in Los Angeles. My father remarried and moved to a small suburb of Atlanta. For one month out of the year in the summer, I would fly back and spend time with my dad, so I had a father at times.

    Further, I had a series of stepfathers who ranged from wonderful guys to alcoholics to dangerous individuals. Having lived through such experiences, I find it amusing when people say that children really need a father in the home. Well, if he is a good father and a good man, then I agree completely. If he is not, then the child might actually be better off without him. We don't just need fathers — we need good fathers.

    I feel it fair to say I ended up a very successful adult, at least that's what people tell me. So how did I do it? I think it started with me having a bit of a chip on my shoulder. Normally this is not a good thing, but in my case it was rocket fuel for achievement. Not having a father in my life gave me something to prove, and it motivated me in an “I'll show you” way.

    I also tried very hard, even as a little boy to be self-sufficient. And that means I did not rely upon my parents except to the extent necessary. This kind of independence I believe is highly missed in this age of highly managed children with “helicopter” parents hovering (盘旋) above them constantly.

    I also think I never wanted not having a father in my life to be an excuse for myself. We make and allow excuses constantly these days, but I just never felt that feeling sorry for myself was going to get me anywhere, I think if children can adopt such mindsets early in their lives it can be helpful.

    Photos of eight-year-old Wang Fuman, nicknamed by “Snowflake Boy” in Yun Nan, shared by his principal on Tuesday, showed the boy has a red face from the low temperatures and apparently did not wear enough clothes to keep warm. He also suffered from frostbite. He stood alone with his white hair and eyebrows while other classmates behind were clearly amused and laughing. The picture drew widespread attention around the whole world. Many netizens (网民) were sympathetic to the boy's difficulties, with many Mircoblog users giving comments under the report.

    Just after the report, a donation of 100,000 yuan was sent to his Primary School. Constantly, help still pours in for the Chinese boy. But the local authorities call on others to pay attention to other similar rural areas and give them timely aid. In China, there are still so many children just like Fuman living by himself with parents migrating to cities to make a living.

Polly Townsend

    PART THREE READING COMPREHENSION

Directions: Read the following three passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A,B,C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage. (20%)

    "Mummy, I don't know what to play with. " Steve interrupts his mother, who is talking to a friend, for the fourth time. "You've got a room full of toys!" his mother says, impatiently, In fact it is the jumble of toys which is to blame for four -year-old Steve's lack of interest in his dolls, cars and stuffed （packed）animals. Each morning he tips out three washing baskets of toys all over his floor, listlessly pulls out something and shortly after is standing at his mother's desk or following her into the kitchen saying: "Mummy, I am bored."

    A family therapist(治疗专家)explains why children lose interest when they have a whole "toy shop" at home : "According to their brain development, little children are not in a position to judge the quality of a variety of things at once. There is always just one favorite toy for the moment. All the rest is left lying about." What can parents do to stop their children from being oversupplied with toys? Under no conditions simply make something disappear without the child's knowledge. If he/she takes no more notice of a toy, a parent can ask if it can be stored or given away. Be warned though the child will help. Lyn is the mother of four-year-old Jessie, and holds the toys and books that are the current（at present）favorites. When it seems to her that her daughter is tired from a cupboard in another room. The box of "old" toys goes into the cupboard. When her child says she is "bored", they also get something from her cupboard—it may be something she has had for some time but because she hasn't seen it for a while it is almost like a new toy.

    Some favorite toys stay out all the time, and there is collection of dolls which sits in the comer, but in this way Lyn has found that she has fewer toys to put away at the end of the day and her daughter always has something "fresh" to play with.

During a pandemic (流行病), for many reasons, there are lots of poor parents who are isolated (隔离) with their kids, or roommates who are stuck together in an apartment. But what about the people who have nobody to talk to?

It is common that people feel lonely. However, during the pandemic, this situation can be much worse for experiences like long-time hospital stays or being unable to move due to poor health, disability or age.

Recently, a friendly robot named Robin got a test run in the children's treatment center of the Wigmore Clinic in Yerevan. About as tall as an 8-year-old child, Robin's plastic body and square head may not put you in mind of a human partner, but its face screen containing two big eyes and expressive brows (眉毛) is attractive, which can help children forget their stress for a while.

A hospital can be very stressful for anybody. And the time of treatment and recovery might seem tiresomely long to an adult stuck in a hospital bed. For a child who can't play with his or her friends or sometimes even family, the long course and boring atmosphere seem unbearable. That's where Robin comes in. It can recognize (识别) facial expressions and use the mood of a talk to build personalized, natural conversations and dialogues with a lonely child in the way another child might use. Robin also plays games, tells stories, and makes children take part in various other activities.

According to Expper Technologies, the makers of Robin, during the program with Wigmore Clinic, Robin improved the experience of children in the hospital by 26 percent over those who did not have the chance to play with Robin, and reduced their stress levels by 34 percent during their hospital stay. Mary, whose son was one of those users, said, "Thanks to Robin, my son became happy every day during this pandemic." John Smith, a father of a five-year-old girl in the clinic, told a reporter, "Robin is a great partner. It brings big smiles to my daughter's face."