A Book Review—The Snake-Stone by Berlie Doherty

    The setting: Urban England (the cities), but also rural England (the countryside) including remote English villages.

    The theme: The main theme is a teenage search of self-discovery, in this case the search for a mother from whom the hero was separated at an early age. Its other concerns are love, getting on with others, being persistent and courageous and trying to deal with doubts, troubles and worries. As the book moves to a close, James' swimming coach says to him: “You are not like a kid obeying instructions any more. You are diving like a young man who knows where he is going.”

    The characters: James is the hero of the story. He is a championship diver, and has a comfortable life with his foster parents (养父母). Yet he also has the qualities to take him on a long journey to find his birth mother. The other characters in The Snake-Stone, James' parents, his diving instructor, best friend, the villagers, people he meets on his journey, are pictured realistically.

    The turning point: The turning point in the story comes while James' foster parents are away in London, and he wonders about the identity of his birth mother. The only clue he has is a fossil, “the snake stone” which she left behind along with a note on which she had written: “Take good care of Sammie. It was written on a torn envelope with parts of an address still there.

    The journey: Instead of going to London, James decides to find his birth mother. With help from his geography teacher, James sets out for the remote country village where his mother might be found. James has painful, challenging, but also humorous and happy travels. The mother he finally meets, Anne, has a minor yet powerful voice in the novel. He comes to understand why she left him at a stranger's door fifteen years before. Although the meeting is not long, it leaves him with a feeling of completeness. As a journey of self-discovery The Snake-Stone also provides its readers with a happy ending. Its hero says, on returning to his foster parents, “I was home.”

    Just an hour from Atlanta,CounterPoint is held at beautiful Kingston Downs.The grounds include 5,000 acres of rolling North Georgia Hills.They are surrounded by a river on 3 sides with beautiful views of the Appalachian Mountains in the distance.The site hosts plenty of stages,art festivals,camping and many other activities.The site is easy to reach from most of the biggest cities in the Southeast.For questions about the festival grounds,email us at info@counterpointfestival.com.

    Camping

    CounterPoint is a"Camping Optional" Festival.You can take a tent,bring an RV,or stay at a hotel.The campgrounds have featured comforts and amenities（便利设施）that will make you feel right at home.If you don't want to camp,there are buses and travel package options that offer a quick ride back to your hotel.For questions about camping,email us at info@countenointfestival.com.

    Art

    The visual experience at CounterPoint is one-of-a-kind.Take a walk through the Art Village to check out rare arts and various crafts.More details on the art,artists,and the 2016 Art Village will be shown soon.The application to be an art exhibitor at the 2016 CounterPoint Music And Arts Festival is now closed.Check next January for the 2017 application.Contact vendors@counterpointfestival.com with questions.

    Food & Drink

    We've got everything you need to fuel up your festival experience.Pack an appetite（食欲）—CounterPoint will have plenty of food and beverage options for you.The application to be a food court exhibitor at the 2016 CounterPoint Music And Arts Festival is now closed.Check back next January for the 2017 application.Contact vendors@counterpointfestival.com with questions.

    CounterPointer Cares

    CounterPoint wants to keep Kingston Downs looking beautiful.With your support,we can leave a lasting positive influence through recycling and waste reduction programs.If you represent a nonprofit organization interested in being featured at CounterPoint,Contact vendors@counterpointfestival.com to tell us more about it.

    Everyone takes drugs. Sometimes a drug might be called a herb but the effect is the same. Drugs and herbs can make life better for they are used to improve health. From the simplest headache to a cure for cancer, people believe that certain drugs can help them. But there is danger if the drugs are not used in a proper way.

    American teenagers sometimes use certain drugs to feel good. They call this “getting high”. The problem is that once a young man or a young woman has the feeling of “getting high”, they want to do it often. If school is boring or too hard, students might get depressed and a drug or herb might help them feel better. If the student takes too much of a drug, the body may change in a wrong way such as a confused mind, poor sight, a headache, and an uncomfortable stomach.

    Schools now have D．A．R．E．program which means Drug Abuse Resistance Education. This program was started so that young students from age 10 to 18 might understand how a drug affects their bodies. The main point of the program is education. Once a student understands certain drugs can cause ill health，he will know he should not use them.

    Education is the key to good nutrition as well. If a student eats correctly, he or she will be full of energy which leads to good study habits and good grades. Poor nutrition may cause the need for more sleep and poor concentration. Proper food is similar to the proper use of drugs. Both allow a healthy body to grow while misuse of them prevents a person from developing normally.

    We may be only three weeks into December, but artist Jonnie Hartman has been in the holiday spirit for months, designing and building the Grand America Holiday Window Stroll.

The goal with each window stroll is to create playful and uplifting displays (展示), according to Hartman. "I really try to do something lighthearted, something whimsical, that is, something everyone can connect with and maybe not see every day in the real world," Hartman said.

    She designs all of the window displays by hand, starting with pencil sketches, then illustrating the designs on her computer and sending parts of the drawings to be printed. From there, Hartman works with a team of five people to build the displays, creating, sewing and embellishing (润色) many elements by hand.

    However, a challenge Hartman has faced over the years as she has designed the displays is making sure all of the measurements are right for elements to fit inside the windows.

"When I was in college, I was an art major, and I thought, 'I don't need math. I will never use it. I'm an artist,' and guess what, it's the most important thing that I use, ''Hartman said. "If I don't get that right, then the windows don't fit, the pieces don't come together and it just doesn't work out."

    The holiday window stroll gives Hartman a unique opportunity to hear feedback from those who observe her creations, which is something she doesn't always get to experience with her other artworks. She said it's fun to hear people's reactions as they go through the holiday window stroll.

"It just makes me happy that I can kind of set the tone for people's holiday season and just maybe bring a smile to their face," Hartman said.

    I took down the violin I made in the past two months, and walked towards the farmland outside. The violin shined in the sunlight, and I admitted, unwillingly, that it looked good. But I knew it was a mockery (笑柄) of my failure to find beauty.

    “What makes a violin beautiful?”

    I first asked this question as a three-year-old child and now again as a teenager. When I listened to a violin for the first time, I was so astonished by its beauty that I imagined a fairy living in the wooden frame. But fairies faded when I grew older. I wanted a reasonable answer to the question.

    I referred to Professor Ruan, my violin teacher, who introduced the violin to me 14 years ago. This 85-year-old man rhapsodized about (热烈赞美)the legend of Antonio Stradivari. “His violins are the most beautiful works human has ever crafted.” “Make a violin with your own hands," Professor Ruan suggested, "When you play it, you'll know.”

    However, when Professor Ruan introduced to me a violin workshop, what I saw was far from my expectation. In front of me was a fat worker, shirtless and sunburned, soon to become my master. What shocked me most was that the “master” knew nearly nothing about music. His rough hands had been tending crops, not instruments, for most of his life.

Two months later, standing outside the workshop, I was disappointed. Yes, I just finished or copied a Stradivarius violin. But I didn't find beauty in it. Then I remembered Professor Ruan's words, "When you play it, you'll know.” So I closed my eyes, and focused on where my fingers and strings touched. Music flowed suddenly so beautifully that for a moment I doubted my own ears. Slowly I opened my eyes, and with surprise found the fairy of my childhood fantasy dancing to my music — the two-year-old daughter of the master.

    Professor Ruan was right. I didn't find beauty until I played music with the violin, because beauty isn't in the instrument itself. It's just here, deep down, in ourselves.

    For thousands of years, people have known that the best way to understand a concept is to explain it to someone else. "While we teach, we learn," said Roman philosopher Seneca. Now scientists are bringing this ancient wisdom up to date. They're documenting why teaching is such a fruitful w ay to learn, and designing creative ways for young people to take part in instruction.

    Researchers have found that students who sign up to tutor others work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively. Student teachers score higher on tests than pupils who're learning only for their own sake. But how can children, still learning themselves, teach others? One answer: They can tutor younger kids. Some studies have found that first-born children are more intelligent than their later-born siblings(兄弟姐妹). This suggests their higher IQs result from the time they spend teaching their siblings. Now educators are experimenting with ways to apply this model to academic subjects. They arrange college undergraduates to teach computer science to high school students, who in turn instruct middle school students on the topic.

    But the most cutting-edge tool under development is the "teachable agent" — a computerized character who learns, tries, makes mistakes and asks questions just like a real-world pupil.

    Computer scientists have created an animated(动画的)figure called Betty's Brain, who has been "taught" about environmental science by hundreds of middle school students. Student teachers are inspired to help Betty master certain materials. While preparing to teach, they organize their know ledge and improve their own understanding. And as they explain the information to it, they identify problems in their own thinking.

    Feedback from the teachable agents further improves the tutors' learning. The agents' questions forces student tutors to think and explain the materials in different ways, and watching the agent solve problems allow s them to see their know ledge put into action.

    Above all, it's the emotions one experiences in teaching that improve learning. Student tutors feel upset when their teachable agents fail, but happy when these virtual pupils succeed as they develop pride and satisfaction from someone else's accomplishment.