Once there was a young boy. He had no family except for an old llama. Each day the boy and his llama walked many miles, looking for a home. Each night they curled up (赌缩）and slept. But on one starry (满天星斗的）evening, the old llama died. The boy buried (埋葬）his friend next to a small icy river. Then he sat under a tree and cried. What would he do? He had no family and no home.

The boy cried for a very long time. But there was no one to comfort (安慰）him. There were only the stars in the sky.

Suddenly, the sky filled with bright light. The boy held his breath. He was afraid to move. One bright star fell to the ground. Slowly, the star took the shape of the old llama. She bent her head and drank from the river. She looked at the boy and smiled. As she jumped back into the sky, bits of llama wool fell. As the sun began to rise, the boy picked up the soft, warm wool. It gave out light in his hands like starlight. He carried the wool to the city and sold it. With the money, he bought a house. He bought two young llamas. He never forgot the star llama. And he was never lonely again.

Jane Goodall is a famous scientist. For more than 40 years, Goodall lived mostly in Tanzania in East Africa, studying chimpanzees.

    As a young child, Jane Goodall was interested in animals. She grew up in the English countryside and was always climbing trees or riding horses.

When Jane was 23, she got a chance to go to Africa even though she had never been to college，she got a job with a famous scientist named Louis Leakey.

One day Louis Leakey said he needed a volunteer. He needed someone to go to a lake in Tanzania to study a kind of chimpanzees. Jane was excited.

    On July 16,1960, she began her exploration（探索）. At first, the chimpanzees ran away from Jane. But with time passing，they got used to her being around.

    Every day，Jane would follow the chimpanzees，taking notes on their behavior. She learned many new things about chimpanzees. She watched how a chimpanzee made a tool. She learned how some chimpanzees became good leaders. She watched how mother chimpanzees raised their children. She watched animals get angry and get upset. She wrote everything down so others would understand animals as she did. She learned that if you pay really close attention to animals，you will understand what they are “saying”.

    Esperanza lives in a poor Latino(拉丁美洲人) neighborhood in Chicago, .America. She dreams of having her own house one day. Her parents told her that when they moved from their last house, they would have a new' and shiny(亮闪闪的) house. But the house is small and old.

    Many people live in Mango Street in a big old house. Esperanza lives behind it with her family. A lot of the people who have come from Mexico don't speak English. Many miss their home country. Esperanza understands their sadness, but she also feels at home in America. She is an American, but her roots(根) will always be Latino,

    Esperanza is young. Like her friends, she has to grow up fast. She is stuck between being a girl and being a woman. In the poor and dangerous area where she lives, this is difficult for her. Mexican people usually live in a close neighborhood. This means that people live packed(挤塞的) in together. Everyone knows everyone else. So Esperanza knows other older girls that do things she is not comfortable doing. It is just a fact of her life.

    But Esperanza has good friends too. She becomes friends with two sisters named Lucy and Rachel. They ride bikes and have adventures together. Esperanza is also friends with a girl named Alicia. Alicia is afraid of the rats in her apartment. She shares her poems with Esperanza.

    Mr. Harris taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a talk about an animal called" birdcat", which died out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull（头骨） as he talked. We all took notes carefully and later we had a test.

    When he returned my paper the next day, there was a big red"×" through each of my answers. I failed! There must be some mistakes! I wrote down exactly（确切地）what Mr. Harris had said. Then I learned that everyone in the class had failed. Why? "Very simple, "Mr. Harris said, "I made up all that 'birdcat'. But there had never been any such animal. So the information in your notes was not correct. Did you think you would get good grades for that?"

    However, we felt that was unfair. What kind of a test was this? And what kind of a teacher was he?

    Mr. Harris added, "I have told you many unbelievable things about this animal, such as the size, the color, but none of you have questioned. I hope you will learn something from this lesson. Teachers and textbooks are not always correct. In fact no one is." He also told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we thought he or the textbook was wrong.

    Up to now Mr. Harris' class gave me and my classmates something just as important: to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong.

    It was one o'clock in the morning when I at last succeeded in creating life.

    As I looked at the lifeless human being, I saw one eye slowly open. Then he began to breathe and move his arms. At first, I thought he would be a fine-looking man. He had yellow skin, black hair and very white teeth. Unluckily, his eyes were watery, and his lips were thin and colorless. I soon realized that there was nothing beautiful about him. I ran out of the room, disgusted (恶心) by the creature I had created. I tried to sleep, but for hours I could not. Then, when I did get to sleep, I had bad dreams. When I awoke the next morning, I did not want to return to my laboratory and the monster I had created. I went for a long walk until I came to an inn. There, to my pleasure and surprise, I found my friend, Henry Clerval. "Tell me about my family," I asked him. "And Elizabeth, How is she?"

    "They are all well, Frankenstein," he said. "But you do not look well, my friend. Your eyes look as if you have not slept for many weeks."

    I knew this was true. "I have been so busy," I explained, "that I have been working without rest." Henry walked back with me to my department. I did not want him to, but I could not stop him. I was afraid that the creature i had left there might be alive and walking about. When we reached my apartment, I asked Henry to wait outside for a few minutes. I did not explain why. I slowly opened the door and entered the room. To my surprise, it was empty. The creature had gone. I was so overcome by the feeling that I fainted. I was ill for many months.

    During my illness, Henry was my only nurse. He heard me talking in my sleep about a monster. At first, he thought I was just having a bad dream, but then he realized that something very bad happened in my life. At last, I began to get better.