World Book Day 2021 Free Digital Books

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury by Marc Levy

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order, but even Alice has to admit it's been an odd week. Not only has her neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable friend, but he's encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life.

Some Days by Maria Wernicke

A young girl tells her, mother, about a passageway in their yard. Down this passageway, the person she longs for is with her again. The only problem is that, sometimes, the passageway disappears. But maybe, together, mother and daughter can find a way to carry that feeling with them always.

You, Me, and the Colors of Life by Noa C. Walker

Faced with challenges from an early age, Janica has learned to celebrate and enjoy every day as a gift. Her attitude fascinates Thomas, a shy young man who begins to see the rich colors of life. As she reveals a world he never could have imagined, Thomas falls in love with the strong young woman and becomes part of her loving family.

The Broken Circle by Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller

Before the Soviet invasion of 1980, Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller remembers, her home—Kabul, Afghanistan—was quite peaceful. But after her mother leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war spreads, and Enjeela and her family are thrown into disorder and fear that her mother will not be coming home.

A “Quick Response Code”, also known as QR code is a type of barcode that Denso Wave developed, a Japanese barcode developer, in 1994.

The use of technology saves people's efforts in labor. In the early 1960s, the economy of Japan entered high economic growth. During this period, supermarkets and convenience stores thrived and were selling a wide variety of goods ranging from food to clothing. To keep up with the demand for checkout counters, cash registers（收银机）were widely used. Due to the heavy workload, cashiers on the checkout counters experienced numbness on their wrists and developed a kind of disease. As a solution to the problem, the Point of Sales (POS) system was developed and included the use of barcodes.

In the long run, developers noticed the problem barcodes held. The limit of 20 alphanumeric characters was not long enough in holding a product's information and the position of how a barcode is scanned leads to scan failures. Denso Wave stepped in and invented a new type of barcode that could hold more information and could be scanned in any scanner direction. Thus, QR code was introduced in 1994 and has made history up to today.

Today, QR codes are generally used in advertising, business, health care, and education. There are two types of QR codes: Static QR codes and Dynamic QR codes. Static QR codes are QR codes that are free and permanent. This type of QR code is not modifiable （可修改的） and therefore cannot change the data stored in the QR code. Dynamic QR codes are QR codes that are modifiable in content and can store more data even after you have printed it into the paper.

Someday it may be possible for people to deal with their food allergies(过敏)simply by brushing teeth. A New York City-based company has started a trial to test this concept in a small group of peanut-allergy sufferers. The idea is to expose users to small doses(剂量)of an allergen daily, in order to build tolerance to it

“Tying this treatment to a daily routine should help allergy sufferers keep up with regular treatment,” say researchers at Intrommune Therapeutics, which developed the toothpaste. The product may also do a better job than existing therapies(疗法). Several years ago, William Reisacher, an allergist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, was standing in front of a mirror brushing his teeth. “I saw all the foam(泡沫)in my mouth going into all the areas I wanted it to go,” he says. “If food proteins could be delivered as a toothpaste, that would get the treatment to the right cells and make it a routine daily habit.”

“William told me this crazy idea he had, and I thought it was perfect,” says Michael Nelson, cofounder of Intrommune. “The newly started trial of the toothpaste will include 32 peanut-allergic adults to test how well they tolerate increasing doses. Future trials may test toothpastes that contain several different allergens.”

Other allergists support the toothpaste concept, though some worry about dose control and safety. “When there are sores in a patient's mouth or after a patient loses a tooth—allergens may have direct access to the bloodstream, which increases the risk of systemic allergic reactions,” says allergist Sakina Bajowala.“Safety is something I'm going to be watching closely,” she says. “But if they find something that can                    be commercialized and made accessible, and if they can prove it's safe and effective, then fantastic.”