Haiyan is 7 years old. Her parents gave her an iPad as a gift for her birthday. A month later，her eyesight（视力）dropped to 300 degrees. This is serious for such a young child.

    Many children in China are facing the same problem: iPad using is bringing problems to their eyesight. The problem is so common that newspapers even call the iPad the "No. 1 killer of children's eyesight!"

    "There are about 30 shortsighted children coming every day, "said Hu Dali, an eye doctor at Guiyang Aier Eye Hospital. "Half of those children have poor eyesight because they have played with phones and iPads for too long. "

    Doctors and scientists say children's vision（视觉）is not yet fully developed and their eyes get tired more easily. The screen of an iPad uses very bright（明亮的）LED backlight. If children look at an iPad screen for a long time, their eyes do not have time to rest. This will make their eyesight worse over time.

    Doctors advise that users should hold their iPads between 40-60 centimeters（厘米）away from them. The brightness of the screen should be comfortable for children. Parents should also stop their children from using an iPad for more than one hour every day.

    Emilyand Alex were happy when their family moved to a house with a very big garden. Theycould climb up trees, grow flowers and even play badminton. They liked to watchthe birds flying among the trees in the garden. They even started to put food outto attract（吸引）more birds.

    Everythingwas fine for a few days until one afternoon there was a strange bumping noise ona window. Emily went outside and found a small bird dead on the grass. Its neckseemed to be broken.

    "Itmust have flown into the window," Alex said when his sister Emily called himto have a look. "Ah, yes, look here. You can see the mark where it hit thewindow. There are a couple of tiny feathers stuck(粘贴) on the window."

    "Poorthing!" Emily said.

    Duringthe next month, another five birds died in the same way. "Why would they flyto the windows?" they wondered. Finally they found out the truth. When thebirds were flying, they couldn't see into the rooms. All they saw was the reflection(反射) of the garden. They thought that they were flying into trees becausethey saw trees reflected by the window.

    "Somethinghas to be done to save the birds." the parents decided.

    At first,he family tried keeping curtains（窗帘）across the windows, but thismade the room dark. Then they bought some strong black paper and cut out the shapeof ahawk. They made six hawks—one for each window. They stuck the hawks to the windows. They lookedpretty and did not keep out much light. When the birds saw the hawks, they wouldfly away.

    Afterthat, there were no more dead birds. The family were much happier.

The Letter That Changed a Life

A letter changed Levi Strauss's life. In 1849 gold was discovered in California. Thousands of people rushed to California in 1 of finding gold and becoming wealthy. The people hoping to find gold were foolish and greedy. One of those who headed for California was Levi Strauss. Strauss was different. Strauss was a clever, hard-working man. He was 2 a new start in life. Up to this time, Strauss had worked for his two brothers in New York City. The brothers sold clothes and blankets and other goods. Strauss planned to set up a 3 business to his brothers' in California.

Over the years, Strauss's business grew. In 1872 he got a letter from one of his customers, a tailor (裁缝) in Nevada. The tailor, Jacob Davis, had an idea for making better work pants. The pockets on work pants often tore. Jacob Davis 4 metal rivets (铆钉) to the pockets. Rivets are pieces of metal used to join things together. The rivets worked well, and the miners liked them. Davis didn't have enough money to get a patent for his invention. He also needed help making the pants. In his 5 Davis said that if they worked together, the two of them ‘‘could make a very large amount of money.''

Strauss could see that riveted work pants were a good idea. He agreed to help Davis. The two decided to make the pants. They decided to use denim cloth because it is a strong cloth that doesn't tear easily and is long lasting. 6 , the riveted denims were called ‘‘dungarees.'' Dungarees is a word from the Hindi language of India that means "rough cloth". Because they were tough and durable, dungarees were worn by thousands of farmers, miners, builders, and other workers. Later, dungarees came to be called "jeans". "Jeans" is a better name for the pants than "dungarees".

Guangnian, a 5- year- old boy, moved lots of Chinese Internet users these days. In a video, Guang 1 his more than 30- centimeter- long hair.

Why didn't he cut his hair? 2 he wanted to help children with cancer(癌症). This3 came to him when Guang was watching a video. He saw girls with cancer lose their hair quickly after treatment(治疗). Then he 4 to grow his hair long and give them away to those girls. But he was only 3 years old, so nobody took his words 5 and thought Guang would give up halfway.

" On my first day of school, others mistook me for a girl. 6 I told them I was a boy, they still called me a girl and 7 me. It made me feel 8 ," Guang said." Sometimes I wish to have short hair so that people could tell I'm a boy from my 9 . But my father told me to keep going," he added.

This summer, he can give away his hair. How 10 it is for such a little child to keep doing such a challenging(有挑战性的) and meaningful thing. What a br ave little boy!

①How do you feel when you make a mistake? No one likes making mistakes. It often makes you feel unhappy. However, the feeling you get after making a mistake helps your brain adjust (调整) itself and learn. For example, you can't learn how to ride a bike without falling off it, or make friends without sometimes saying things you regret. Getting things wrong helps us adjust ourselves, so we can do things differently.

②____. Accepting and learning from our mistakes gives us the courage to try harder next time. Psychologists (心理学家) at Michigan State University call this a "growth mindset". A growth mindset means you see failure as something you can learn from, instead of something you regret. Elsie, 13, said it was hard to accept mistakes but they made her a better learner. "I once made a cake that came out like two big biscuits. I was upset but I realized I hadn't read the cookbook properly. Now I always read the cookbook twice."

③Alexandra Eidens from a magazine for kids said we should be open to mistakes because learning from them can help us believe in ourselves and face difficulties bravely. Try talking about one of our mistakes with family or friends. Whether the experience is funny or painful, sharing the story with others will help make it clear how the mistake happened. Eidens also suggests writing down our mistakes. She believes it gives us a chance of self-expression, creativity and learning. It's also a good way for us to learn from our mistakes.

Benjamin West, the father of American painting, showed his talent for art when he was only six years of age. But he did not know about brushes before a visitor told him he needed one. In those days,a brush was made from camels'(骆驼) hair. There were no camels nearby. Benjamin decided that cat hair would work instead. He cut some hair from the family cat to make a brush.

The brush did not last long. Soon Benjamin needed more hair. Before long, the cat began to look ragged(蓬乱). His father said that the cat must be sick. Benjamin had to tell his father what he had been doing.

The cat's lot was about to improve. That year,one of Benjamin's cousins,Mr.Pennington, came to visit. He was impressed (印象深刻) with Benjamin's drawings. When he went home, he sent Benjamin a box of paint and some brushes as well as six paintings by an artist, which were the first pictures and first real paint and brushes that Benjamin had ever seen

In 1747, when Benjamin was nine years old, Mr. Pennington returned for another visit. He was amazed at what Benjamin had done with his talent. He asked Benjamin's parents if he might take the boy back to Philadelphia for a visit.

In the city, Mr. Pennington gave Benjamin materials for creating oil paintings. The boy began painting. William Williams, a well-known painter, came to see him work. Williams was impressed with Benjamin and gave him two books on painting to take home. The books were long and boring. Benjamin could read only a little, having been a poor student. But he later said that those two books stayed with him by day, and under his head at night. While it was likely that he understood very little of the books, they were his introduction to paintings. The nine-year-old boy decided then that he would be an artist.