Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales, Britain. His father was rich but he died when Roald was very young. Roald and his mother lived a hard life. He had to leave school and went to Africa where he worked for an oil company.

    In 1939 Roald became a pilot, but he had a bad accident. It made him limp(瘸的) for the rest of his life. After this, Roald went to America where he wrote a story about his experience as a pilot. It was so good that it was put in a magazine.

Roald married an American film star. They bought a house in England and had five children. From 1960 to 1965,    ▲   : Theo, one of his children, was hit by a taxi and was seriously hurt. Olivia, one of Roald's daughters, died of a strange illness. Soon after this, his wife also had a serious illness. It took her years to get completely better.

 Gradually Roald became more and more successful. He always did his writing in an old shed(棚) at the back of his house. He always sat in the same old armchair with a wooden board on his lap.

 “One of the nice things about being a writer,” he once said, “is that all you need is what you've got in your head and a pencil and a bit of paper.”

       In 1983 Roald wona big prize for his book The BFG. During his life, Roald wrote many famous books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox

       After he died in 1990, Roald left money to help people with serious illnesses and those with problems with reading and writing.           

    Shi Li and Cui Jiping are husband and wife. They are disabled. They completed the first Chinese encyclopedic(百科知识的) dictionary for deaf people and people with hearing problems.

       Mike wants to fly like a bird. His father tells him, "You can't fly like a bird because you are too big." "Why can't I? Some birds are big, but they can fly!" The boy doesn't understand. Bill is crippled. He wants to walk and run like other kids. "Why can't I walk or run like other kids?" Bill thinks.

      One day, the two boys meet in a park. "Do you want to fly like a bird?" Mike asks Bill. "No," Bill says. "I only want to walk and run like you."

      Then Mike walks to Bill's father. He says something to him. "That's OK," says the father. Mike goes to Bill and says, "Get on to my back．Let's run." Then Mike runs with Bill on his back. Bill is very happy and says, "We can fly, Mike! We can fly!"

    Do you suppose Darwin, one of the greatest scientists of all time, really did fools' (傻瓜的) experiments? Or did he do experiments that were so simple and basic (基础的) that other people just thought they were foolish?

    Sometimes, people think they already know the answer to a question or a problem．Sometimes, they really do know an answer, but without thinking it is important．

    Charles Darwin didn't just think he knew something．And, he believed all things could be important no matter how simple they seemed to be．

    Suppose you drop pieces of paper that are of exactly the same size and shape．If you drop them at the same time in the same place, they will fall in the same way．Now make one of the sheets of paper into a tight little ball and let it drop along with the other pieces．What happens? You have done an experiment that is so simple that you might think it couldn't be worth anything．

    But this simple experiment is important．It explains part of our present day understandings of physics (物理学) ideas that were worked out long ago by Galileo and Newton．And these understandings set aside some of ancient Greek (古希腊的) physics．

    The scientist sometimes stops to look at very simple things and to think very hard about them．Even the simplest idea, which we might think is foolish, can shake the foundations (基础) of science．