Look! This is a picture of my teacher's family. This is Mr. Smith. He is my English teacher.

    His wife is a doctor. She is nice. They have a son and a daughter. The boy's name is Sam and the girl's name is Kate. They are students. They are in the same school. They go to school on their bikes.

    Look! The son is like his mother. The daughter is like her father. Now they are all in China and can speak Chinese. They love China.

    Esperanza lives in a poor Latino(拉丁美洲的) neighbourhood 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 neighbourhood. 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(冒险) 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.

    A feral child is a child who, from a young age, has lived with animals in the wild. What makes wild animals adopt these children and raise them as their own is a mystery. Since feral children have often had no contact with humans for a long time, they may be more like wild animals than people. Their stories, although often upsetting can teach us how people learn and use language — and perhaps even what it means to be human.

    In Uganda in 1991, a tribeswoman saw a naked boy living with a troop of wild monkeys in the jungle. The woman was shocked and quickly told the people in her village about the boy. When they tried to take him away from the monkeys, the frightened boy threw sticks at them and climbed up a tree to hide. The monkeys fought fiercely, trying to stop the tribesmen from taking him away, but they did not succeed.

    After his "rescue", the boy was taken to Kamuzinda Chritan Orphanage, outside Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. He was identified as John Ssabunnya, a boy who had disappeared three years earlier after his mother was murdered and his father went missing. John was only two years old when he disappeared.

    John couldn't speak when he arrived at the orphanage. It was obvious that he did not know how to act in a human way-- he knew only how to behave like a monkey. However, he soon began to talk and was found to have a beautiful singing voice.

    John shot to fame at the age of fourteen, when he toured the UK with a children's choir(合唱队). "His is a remarkable story. One day it could even be made into a film." said tour organizer Hillary Cook.

①You want to go on holiday, but don't have enough money for luxury hotels and expensive trips? Backpacking might be right up your street. 

②Backpacking is a very cheap kind of travel. European and American students and young adults who may not have all that much money often do it. It is called backpacking because, instead of using a suitcase, people put all their things in a large backpack. A backpack sits on your back, and you pack all your clothes inside. 

③The most popular places for backpacking are Southeast Asia and South America. These countries aren't very expensive, and are also very hot for most of the year. India and Australia are also very popular. Last year over 400, 000 backpackers hit Australia. 

④Backpacking, in fact, is much more than a holiday—for young people in Europe, it is seen as a way of learning about the world. Backpackers often travel alone for many months, as this is seen as more of an adventure and challenge. Beyond finding new worlds, backpacking, people say, is all about "finding yourself". 

We all need good friends and want to get on well with them.  But what do you do when you and your best friend have 1 ideas? At first, I didn't know what to do when this happened to my best friend Karina and me. 

When we first met at a summer camp, we got along so 2 that we shared stories, laughed a lot, and quickly became inseparable (形影不离的) friends.  But then something happened at a picnic.  "Did you hear the news about the shopping center?" asked one of our friends Levar.  "Some people plan to3 many trees to make room for a shopping center. "

"That's terrible! It will be bad for our environment (环境).  We have to 4 that," I said. 

"I don't think so," said Karina.  "The shopping center will give people new jobs. "

"But animals will 5 their homes!" I said.  "I want people to have 6 , but it doesn't have to do such a terrible thing. "

I wanted Karina to join me in 7 trees, but she didn't want to.  I was so angry that I didn't 8 her for days.  Later, my mother knew it and said to me seriously (严肃地), "No two people are the same.  You should 9 each other.  Don't let the 10 make you lose a good friend. " After listening to my mom's words, I said sorry to Karina.  Now we're still good friends.