Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Italy. He is best known as an artist today. One of his famous paintings is called Mona Lisa. However, Leonardo had many other natural abilities. He was also a great inventor. Many of his inventions have become important in modern daily life.

Although Leonardo hated war, he invented many different machines used for war. His most special invention was the machine gun, which was produced and used in war many years later.

    By watching the way birds fly, Leonardo tried to find out the secret of flying. Among his sketch (素描) we can see several objects. We consider them as modern flying machines.

    Leonardo spent many hours thinking about how to make good use of time. He developed ideas for labor-saving machines like cutting machines.

Leonardo was a strange man. He didn't eat any meat, which was very unusual in those times. He never published(发表) his ideas and scientific discoveries. He usually used mirror writing, which looks like writing in a mirror, starting from the right side of the page and moving to the left.

    We have very little of his work today. Leonardo finished only a few of his paintings. He left many unfinished because he thought they were not perfect. No one in his life time knew how great Leonardo was. We now believe, however, that he was one of the cleverest men the world has ever known.

    A farmer had a faithful（忠诚的） horse who was old and couldn't do much work. So the farmer no longer wanted to give him anything to eat and said, “If you can bring me a lion here, I will keep you.”

    The horse was sad, and went to the forest. There he met a fox. After the fox heard the story, he said. “I will help you. Just lie down, as if you were dead, and do not move."

    The horse did what the fox asked, and then the fox went to the lion and said, “A dead horse is lying out there. Just come with me, and you have a rich meal.”

    The lion went with him, and they were both standing by the horse, the fox said, “Now let me tie the horse to your tail and you can take it home and eat it.”

    The fox's words made the lion very happy. But the fox tied the lion's legs together with the horse's tail. When the fox finished his work, he said to the horse, “Pull the lion to the farmer.”

    Then the horse pulled the lion away with him at once. The lion was very angry but he couldn't do anything. When the farmer saw the lion, he was in a good mood（心情）, and said to the horse, “ You can stay with me." And he give him enough food to eat until the horse died. 

    Billy's favorite color is orange. But he can't see what orange looks like. Billy is blind.

    A month after he was born, his mother noticed that his eyes weren't quite as big as a normal baby's. “Billy would never be able to see.” the doctor told his mother. After that Billy's mother began talking to him, describing things she saw outside the window. She described everything to him.

    Billy does not only depend on his mother's descriptions to learn about the world around him. He sees with his cars and his hands, too. He has perfect hearing. When people make phone calls, he can tell the numbers they dial(拨).

    Billy loves computer science. He began teaching himself computer programming when he was just seven years old. His dream school would be Stanford University. He gets top grades in his classes, making that a real possibility.

    “You can't let excuses get in the way of your dreams, and if you do that you can't move forward and reach your goals, “said Billy.

    Long, long ago, a donkey(驴) fell in a dry well. The animal cried for hours as the farmer tried to think out what to do. Finally, the farmer thought the animal was too old and the well needed to be covered(覆盖) up anyway, so he decided not to try to save the donkey.

    The farmer invited his neighbours(邻居) to help him. They began to shovel(铲) dirt into the well. The donkey cried harder. Then a few shovelful later, he became quiet. The farmer looked into the well, and was surprised by what he saw.

    While every shovelful of dirt hit his back, the donkey would shake (抖) it off and take a step on the new layer(层) of dirt. As the farmer's neighbours continued(继续) to shovel dirt on top of the animal, the donkey would shake it off and take another step up.

    Soon the donkey stepped up out the well and ran away, to the surprise of all the neighbours

    The lesson we get from this story is that life shovels some dirt on us, we must get out of the well and not let it cover us. We must learn to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our trouble is a stepping-stone (踏脚石). We can get out of the deepest well by never giving up!

    Maria lived near a forest. She often played with the animals in the forest. They were all her friends.

    One day, Maria walked into the forest to play with her animal friends. But to her surprise, the forest was very quiet and the animals weren't there! Maria hurried back to tell her parents. Her parents returned to the forest with Maria. The forest was still very quiet. But Maria's father noticed a little monkey behind a big tree.  The monkey was dying! They tried to save it. But the monkey was too weak. Before it died, the monkey told them the truth(真相)：a ghost(魔鬼)wanted to get the forest, so he asked all the animals to go away.

    Maria and her parents were very angry. They decided to drive the ghost away. They asked their friends and neighbors to help them. The ghost was strong but the people were stronger. At last, the ghost left and the animals returned to the forest happily.