1 . The poem When This is Over is now an educational tool which is studied like the works of Homer. Professional writer Laura Fanuc wrote the poem to cheer herself up. To her surprise, it went popular online. That’s the old news.

The new news is that the poem has become an education assignment for a humanities class in the South Bronx. It has inspired about 80 sixth graders to write their own version (版本).

The students are enrolled in the American Dream School, a charter school for English language learners and immigrant students. Teachers Daniel Zauderer and Niki DeGiorgio introduced their class to the poem, assigning them to study it with the aim of cultivating gratitude through poetry. These students stay at home with laptop computers, through which they connect with their classmates and teachers.

Fanuc’s poem is basically a list of everyday activities she can’t do because of social distancing, and that shall never take for granted again. It ends with an inspirational message of hope that we all will rise from this ordeal (磨难) to be better people.

The teachers challenged the students to brainstorm what they had taken for granted and what they hope people will learn, and to express themselves in a poem of their own. The class followed Fanuc is format (格式), reworking the poem. The students showed some love for DeGiorgio and Zauderer in their version of the poem, with the line: “Seeing my teachers face to face.”

“Working remotely during this pandemic is tough some days,” DeGiorgio said in a Face book post. “What brings me hope and joy is the beautiful hearts, minds and words of my students.”

5 . Nasugraq Rainey Hopson is an author and illustrator (插图画家). She has written short stories and made art inspired by her Iñupiaq culture. The Iñupiaq people are native to Alaska, the US. Hopson’s first and only novel to date, Eagle Drums, is set in Iñupiaq tales about a great festival. The great festival is still celebrated locally today.

In the book, the hero Pina struggles with the suffering from losing his brothers, who have traveled to a nearby mountain and never returned. Pina decides to go to the same mountain, trying to uncover the facts, where he happens to meet Savik, who gives Pina a choice: To follow him or to meet the same fortune as his brothers. Pina’s decision takes himself on a journey that exposes himself to the dances and songs that are part of Iñupiaq culture. Eagle Drums describes aspects of Iñupiaq life as a world that doesn’t exist much in the current world, such as walking in the tundra (苔原) and imagining mythological beings and talking animals everywhere. It will definitely inspire the teen magical thinking in its beauty.

Hopson wants to write more Iñupiaq stories. “We have a lot of oral history and stories in our culture,” she says. Hopson explains that Iñupiaq people use their voices, facial expressions and movements to express emotions as they tell a story. “But you can’t do that when you’re writing,” she says. “It’s very uncomfortable, in a way, to have to write down something that is a performance.” But she’s up for the challenge.

Eagle Drums is for anyone who is looking for a vivid adventure. Hopson says that when Iñupiaq kids read her work, they get excited about seeing something from their own area and their own culture. Other kids who read her work tell Hopson they’re excited about experiencing a story they’ve never experienced before in a new place. “You know, that’s the best part, hearing feedbacks,” she says.

6 . It’s never too late to get into science fiction.

While science fiction, or sci-fi, often asks that most powerful question “What if?” —— it also deals with “This, now”: reflecting it, questioning it and satirizing (讽刺) it. Science fiction can act at once as a glimpse into our imaginary future while holding a mirror up to our current state of society.

Indeed, it can act as a warning for the present to avoid a terrifying future or as a blueprint for future technology. Science fiction can inspire us to live better today so that we can live better lives tomorrow. As Scientific Americans noted, “Science fiction can remind us of … wonder and hope. But it also sends us a warning —— to think about the potential influences of our findings, beyond our idealistic dreams.”

Thanks to its brilliant creators, sci-fi becomes the perfect genre to ask the greatest questions that humans dare to ask and broaden the concepts of what is possible in the universe. Who are we and what can we become? Can technology make the world a better place? What will tomorrow bring —— and what can we do today to make that a reality?

The genre of sci-fi can push the boundaries of what we think is possible, like the legendary submarine mentioned in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea far before any such vehicle existed. Or it can warn us of a near-future impacted by biotechnology, as in the MaddAddam trilogy. Sci-fi can even imagine how Earth responds to first contact with aliens, a focus of The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Sci-fi and its creators know no limits to what can be imagined. Anything is possible.

As science fiction grows in popularity, more books are being written, and more movies and TV shows are adapting these works for the screen. An adaptation of Dune is slated for a 2021 release, and The Three-Body Problem as well as MaddAddam are also in development. The medium of film and television has brought science fiction to life and continues to inspire — or scare — viewers with visions of the future.

7 . San Francisco Park ranger Amanda Barrows, who registered in City College of San Francisco (CCSF)’s Poetry for the People class, began to place a nightstand (床头柜) in Golden Gate Park with a note “take a poem, leave a poem” in December 2022. Since then, over 100 handwritten poems have been placed in the nightstand. “It’s completely unexpected,” said Barrows. “I’m really taken aback by the outpouring of support.”

Park ranger by day and poet by night, Barrows said she began writing and attending poetry workshops in 2020. The poetry course she attended was founded by Leslie Simon in 1975. The class advocates for a focus on the neighborhood, and the cultivation (培养) and public presentation of new poems. For Barrows, the idea that she could combine her job and her hobby by bringing poetry into parks was an inspiration. Barrows asked her friends to contribute their favorite poems to the nightstand as poems that could be taken.

Armed with an old nightstand, Barrows filled the stand with pens and paper. An added drawer at the bottom holds the poems that people “donate”. The concept reminded her of Little Free Libraries, which are fixtures across the city. “I was having anxiety. I had no idea what I was going to do; then it sort of just came to me,” said Barrows. “I was inspired by the little free libraries you see in SF, where you ‘take a book, leave a book’, and thought, ‘Maybe I could do this with poetry.’”

One of the teachers at the CCSF poetry course, Lauren Muller, told The Washington Post that “people need poetry now”, which she suggested as the reason for the success of Barrows’s project.

Past student projects included writing poetry on sidewalks in chalk and placing poems on the windshields (挡风玻璃) of cars. “It’s exciting to see the work that students are doing,” Muller continued. “My hope is that this will happen across city parks… elsewhere.”

One of the largest research libraries in the world, the British Library houses more than 170 million items. The library usually selects works based on     1     (they) popularity or by considering an item’s value.

Recently, 16 Chinese online novels have been added to the     2     (collect) of the British Library, including Great Power, Heavy Industry, Good Spring Time,     3     The Wisdom of Great Song Dynasty.

    4     (cover) themes of science fiction, history, reality and fantasy, these works are considered the classics of Chinese online literature from the past 20 years. Readers can check the information about the 16 books on the library’s website, and borrow     5     (print) copies.

Good Spring Time     6     (focus) on Chinese porcelain culture, conveying a spirit that encourages people to fight against fate, and pictures women’s independence, as well as the love and care among family members.

Readers can see     7     splendid and elegant China through the tradition, struggles and beauty described in the novel.

Great Power, Heavy Industry tells of how China’s manufacturing industries have rapidly grown     8     (strong) in recent decades, and foreign readers can learn about the Chinese system and culture behind the country’s swift     9     (economy) development. The author,     10     online pen name is Qicheng, said I hope through this novel, overseas readers can experience the charm of Chinese culture.

10 . Greg Heffley is the main character in Jeff Kinney’s best-selling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series of books. Greg is a middle school student with big dreams. In his diary, he writes stories about his struggles to fit in and draws pictures to go with them.

Greg Heffley is a thin but ambitious kid with an active imagination and big plans to be rich and famous — he just has to survive middle school first. To make matters worse, Greg’s lovable best friend, Rowley seems to sail through life and succeed at everything without even trying! As details of his extremely funny — and often disastrous — attempts to infill the pages of his journal, Greg learns to appreciate true friends and the satisfaction that comes from standing up for what is right.

The first live-action movie based on Diary of a Wimpy Kid came out in 2010. Now an animated film based on the original book is about to hit screens.

“The new Diary of a Wimpy Kid is going to feel a lot different from the live-action movie,” Kinney told TFK reporter Lucy Sandor. “Parts of that first movie were reimagined. But the animated version just came to life from the pages of the book,” he said.

Humor inspires Kinney to write. Whether it’s a movie script or a book, he likes to start with jokes. “When I think of a joke, it often comes with a picture in my mind,” he said.

“Then I write. And in the end, I do the drawings.”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid will be available on Disney+ beginning December 3.