Bruce shook his money box again.

    Nothing! He carefully counted the coins that lay on the bed. All that he had was $24.52. The 1 which he wanted was at least $ 90. How on earth(究竟) was he going to get the rest of the 2?

    He knew that his friends all had bicycles. It was hard to hang out(闲逛) with people when you were the only one 3 a bicycle. He thought about 4 he could do. He couldn't get money from his parents, because he knew they had no extra(额外的) money.

    There was only one way to get money, and that was to earn(挣钱) it. He would have to find a job. He decided to ask Mr. Clay for 5.

    "Well, you can start right here," said Mr. Clay. "You see, my windows need cleaning and my car need washing."

     That was the beginning of Bruce's part time(兼职) job. For the next three 6 he worked every day after finishing his homework. He took dogs for walks and cleaned rooms.

     The day finally came when Bruce 7 his money and found $ 94.32. He wasted no time and went down to the shop to 8 the bicycle he wanted. He rode home proudly, looking forward to 9 his new bicycle to his friends. Bruce liked his bicycle very much because he had bought it with his own money. At last, his dream came true, and his parents were 10 of him.

    Once upon a time, a hippo(河马) lived in a river next to a big tree.

One day, a bird came and nested(筑巢) in the tree. The songs of the bird filled the hippo with so much envy(羡慕) that he couldn't think of anything else. Every day he would think why he wasn't born to be a bird even though the bird told him many times he was so lucky to be so big and such a good swimmer.

    Finally, the hippo made up his mind that he would come out of the river, climb the tree, and start singing. However, when he tried to climb the tree, it was very clear that the hippo didn't have wings, nor claws to climb with Realizing that he would never climb up the tree, he angrily hit the tree until it came crashing to the ground. Then he stepped onto the leaves of the fallen tree, and began singing.

    Unfortunately, hippos can't sing either. All that came from his mouth were terrible noises, and when the other animals heard this, they all came around to make fun of the hippo.

    He was so ashamed of this. He also felt bad about having knocked the tree over. He used all his strength to raise the tree back up again, and looked after it until it completely recovered(康复).

    If you love reading books, you must know about the book The Little Prince. It's a famous novel written by a French writer. As one of the best-selling books in history, it has been sold as many as 200 million copies in 253 languages and dialects(方言). Now, around seventy years after the birth of the book, an American director has found a way to make it into a 3D animated film(动画片).

    The book tells the story of a pilot, called The Aviator, who crashes(撞击) into the desert and meets a young prince there. However, in the film, the story starts years after the crash when The Aviator is much older. He has got a new neighbor called The Little Girl, whose mother wants her to get ready to enter the grown-up world. Slowly The Aviator shares his story with The Little Girl by writing it down and sending her a page at a time. The pages are complete with the pictures in the book, speaking about his time in the desert and taking The Little Girl to an amazing world where anything is possible.

    China is the first country in the world to see the film in two versions—in Chinese and English. The film shows The Little Girl's life and tells The Little Prince's story at the same time in a beautiful way.

    Huang Lei, who voices the film together with his 9-year-old daughter, says the film is like a childhood dream which is lost by most adults in this stressed-out society.

    "The most touching part is that every one of us was a good-natured kid like the Little Prince, and it's a pity that this good characteristic(品质) goes away as time flies," he says.

    I entered St Thoma's Hospital as a medical student at the age of 18 and spent five years there. I was an unsatisfactory student, for my heart, as you might have guessed, was not in it. I wanted, I had always wanted to be a writer, and in the evening, after my high tea, I wrote and read. Before long, I wrote a novel, called "Liza of Lambeth", which I sent to a publisher and was accepted. It appeared during my last year at the hospital and had something of a success. It was of course an accident, but naturally I did not know that. I felt I could afford to give up medicine and make writing my profession; so, three days after I graduated from the school of medicine, I set out for Spain to write another book. Looking back now and knowing as I do the terrible difficulties of making a living by writing, I realize I was taking a fearful risk. It never even occurred to me.

    The next ten years were very hard, and I earned an average of £100 a year. Then I had a bit of luck. The manager of the Court Theatre put on a play that failed; the next play he arranged to put on was not ready, and he was at his wits' end. He read a play of mine and, though he did not much like it, he thought it might just run for the six weeks till the play he had in mind to follow it with could be produced. It ran for fifteen months. Within a short while I had four plays running in London at the same time. Nothing of the kind had ever happened before. I was the talk of the town. One of the students at St Thomas's Hospital asked the famous surgeon with whom I had worked whether he remembered me. "Yes, I remember him quite well," he said. "One of our failures, I'm afraid."