It takes a lot of skills and hard work to set a world record in pumpkin-carving(雕刻南瓜). Steve Clarke, a sixth-grade teacher from Pennsylvania, is a famous carver(雕刻师). Clarke has set many world records for carving pumpkins quickly. When he competes, he must cut our two eyes, two eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, and two ears as fast as possible. But Clarke knows something else about pumpkin-carving. It's easier to get a record than to keep it.

    He took the title in 2000 when he carved a pumpkin face in 74.8 seconds. That time was 19 seconds faster than what Jerry had set. From then on, Clarke broke his own records five times. In 2006, he set his best time in Florida. His winning time was 24.03 seconds!

    The only problem is that someone finally beat that mark. On October 7, 2010, David set the new record with 20.1 seconds. Clarke was not able to break that record this year, but he has planned to break the record. After Halloween, he will go to local pumpkin farms to practise designs and new skills.

    Clarke is popular because of his super pumpkin-carving skills. In 1999, he carved more than 30 pumpkins at the Halloween party for then vice-president Al Gore.

    Tony is from New York. His father has a store there. And his mother is a reporter. He's six years old now and begins to go to school this year. It's very near their shop and his father doesn't drive a car to take him to school. He walks to school early every day. So he's not late for class and his teachers like him.

    It's Tuesday today. Miss White is teaching them to count from one to ten. Tony is studying hard. Soon he can count them. Miss White is happy and asks, "How many people are there in your family, Tony?"

    Tony stands up and begin to count with his fingers, and then says, "Two, Miss White."

    "Who are they?"

    "My father and my mother."

    "Oh?" Miss White is surprised, "Two people in your family?"

    "Because now I'm not at home."

C

    My daughter Eyen is ten years old. She is in Grade Three in a primary school. She is a cute girl though(虽然) she has some strange ideas sometimes.

    One day she asks me, “Mum, what's your favourite subject?” I think for a while(一会儿) and answer，“It is difficult to tell. I love singing, so music is my favourite. And I am good at English. My history teacher also says I am excellent. Well, I can say I don't like science. But science is important for us, you know. So you must do well in it. What is your favourite subject, Eyen? Tell me something about your subject, dear.”

    “I like Chinese. It is easy. I like English because my English teacher likes me very much. I can't stand maths. It's serious and sad(悲哀的).”

    “Do you mean(意味)your maths teacher is serious and sad?”

    “No, it is maths, not the maths teacher.”

    “Why do you think so?”

    “Because maths has so many problems! Isn't it sad all day?”

    There is an elephant and a monkey. They're friends. But one day they want to know who is stronger （更强壮）. One of them says, "Who can get apples from the tree across the river, who is stronger."The monkey says, "I can't swim." The elephant says, "I can swim. Please sit on my back."Thus they go across the river. The apple tree is very high. The elephant can't reach the apples on the tree. The monkey climbs（爬）up the tree and gets many apples. Now they know they should help each other.

    By the time Rihanna was seventeen, she had released(发行)her first album and had an international hit with her first single(单曲)Pon de Replay.

    Rihanna was born in Saint Michael, Barbados in 1988.She grew up there with her two younger brothers. As a child, she loved singing. She formed her first group with two friends from secondary school when she was just fifteen. In 2004 her friends introduced the group to American record producer Evan Rogers, who was on holiday in Barbados. Rogers thought Rihanna could be a big star in America, so she moved there aged sixteen to take up music after she finished school. Rihanna lived with Rogers and his wife. Then she worked for Def Jam Recordings and started working on her first album, Music of the Sun. It came out in 2005 and got into the top ten. Over 69,000 copies of the album were sold in the first week alone. It went on to sell over two million copies worldwide and Rihanna quickly became a big star. Her second album, A Girl Like Me, came out a year later and included the song SOS, which was her first number one hit in America. In 2007 Rihanna brought out her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, which had more dance music than the first two albums.

    Rihanna sold more than fifteen million albums and forty-five million singles worldwide between 2005 and 2010, the most of any artist at the same time. However, she manages to find time for her charity work, too. She has performed in several concerts to raise money for charity and in 2006 she created her Believe Foundation to help sick children. She also took part in Gucci's activities to raise money for children in Africa.