What’s best to read this year?

Secrets I Know (Random House Children’s Books, ages 3-7)

This tale written by Kallie George and pictured by Paola Zakimi follows a young girl and her little friend as they move from rain to sunshine, from pleasant loneliness to sweet friendship, and finally from adventures on earth to an exploration of the sky above. The colors of Zakimi’s pencildrawings are calming and George’s poetic text tells her story with simple language.

Pandora (Clarion Books, ages 3-7)

The award-winning author Victoria Turnbull tells the story of a little fox Pandora. Pandora lives alone. She makes herself a handsome home, but no one ever comes to visit. Then one day something falls from the sky -- a bird with a broken wing. Little by little, the bird helps Pandora feel less lonely. Turnbull’s watercolor and colored pencil drawings make this story of friendship and growth an atmospheric delight.

Prince and Pirate (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Younger Readers, ages 5-8)

A different kind of friendship is described in this book, by Charlotte Gunnufson with pictures by Mike Lowery. Prince and Pirate are a pair of mismatched fish put into the same aquarium（水族馆). At first it seems that they’ll never learn to be friends. It’s only when both take pity on a frightened dogfish that they learn the benefits of cooperation, and soon all three fish become good friends.

The Giant Jumperee (Dinal Books, ages 3-5)

The story was written by the award-winning British author Julia Donaldson. When Rabbit hears a loud voice bellowing（吼叫）threateningly from inside a cave, he gathers Cat, Bear and Elephant to help him decide what to do. But it’s Mama Frog who fearlessly confronts（面对）the unknown creature. Helen Oxenbury’s soft watercolors creat a beautiful countryside and her characterizations of the animals are impressive.

Everybody, at some point in their lives, has experienced failure. It could be something as simple as not getting the job you wanted, or getting fewer marks even after hard work. But what makes you is not your failure, but how you get back up after being hit.

Once, a young school boy was caught in a fire accident in his school and was assumed that he would not live. His mother was told that he was sure to die, for the terrible fire had destroyed the lower half of his body. Even if he were to survive, he would be lame throughout his life.

But the brave boy did not want to die nor did he want to be lame. Much to the amazement of the doctor, he did survive. But unfortunately from his waist down, he had no motor ability. His thin legs just hung there, lifeless. Eventually he left the hospital. But his determination to walk was unshakable. At home, when he was not in bed, he had to stay in a wheelchair. One day, he threw himself from the chair and pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him. He reached the fence, raised himself up and then began dragging himself along the fence, firmly determined. He did this every day, with faith in himself that he would be able to walk unaided. With his iron determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk on and off, then to walk by himself and then to run.

He began to walk to school, and then run to school, to run for the joy of running. Later in college he was on the track team.

In February 1934, in New York City's Madison Square Garden, this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who could never hope to run - this determined young man, Dr. Glenn Cunningham, ran the world's fastest mile.

A good example of the power of positive thinking and faith in oneself, Glenn Cunningham continues to be an inspiration for many, and his story, a brilliant evidence to how one can bounce back even when all difficulties are piled against one, to the degree that death seemed the preferable option.

After finishing a meal at an American Chinese restaurant you probably expect to receive a handful of fortune cookies after you pay the bill. Fortune cookies are in Chinese restaurants throughout the United States. It’s rather satisfying to crack open a cookie at the end of your meal and read your “lucky fortune” on the slip of paper inside.

The exact origin of the fortune cookie is unknown. It is thought that the tasty snack was the first introduced into San Francisco in 1914, after an immigrant began distributing the cookie with “thank you” notes in them. These “thank you” notes were intended as symbols of appreciation for friends who stood with him through the economic hardship and discrimination of his early life in America.

There is an alternate origin story. Los Angeles is regarded as the site of the fortune cookie’s invention. In this version of the story, David Jung, a Chinese immigrant residing in L. A., is thought to have created the cookie in order to uplift the spirits of the poor and homeless. In 1918, Jung handed out the cookies for free to the poor outside his shop and each cookie contained a strip of paper with an inspirational sentence printed on it.

Fortune cookies first began to gain popularity in mainstream American culture during WWII. Chinese restaurants would serve them in place of desserts, as desserts were not popular in traditional Chinese cuisine. Today fortune cookies are not tied to Chinese-American culture. In fact, the largest fortune cookie manufacturer is located in the United States and it produces 4.5 million fortune cookies a day —— an evidence to the modern-day popularity of the snack. However, an attempt to introduce the fortune cookie to China in 1992 was a failure, and the cookie was cited for being “too American.”

So the next time you break open a fortune cookie and read a fortune about the many successes you should expect in your future, remember that the conclusion to your Chinese restaurant meal may not be as Chinese as you think.

Last week, Vodafone started a test of the UK’s first full 5G service, available for use by businesses in Salford. It is part of its plan to trial the technology in seven UK cities. But what can we expect from the next generation of mobile technology?

One thing we will see in the preparation for the test is lots of tricks with the new tech. Earlier this year, operators paid almost £1.4 billion for the 5G wavelengths, and to compensate for that cash, they will need to catch the eye of consumers. In September, Vodafone used its bit of the range to display the UK’s first hologram (全息) call. The Manchester City captain Steph Houghton appeared as a hologram in Newbury. It isn’t all holograms, however: 5G will offer faster internet access. with Ofcom (英国通讯管理局) suggesting that video that takes a minute to download on 4G will be available in just a second.

The wider application is to support connected equipment on the “internet of things” -not just the internet-enabled fridge that can reorder your milk for you, but the network that will enable driverless cars and delivery drones (无人机) to communicate with each other.

Prof William Webb has warned that the technology could be a case of the emperor’s new clothes. Much of the speed increase, he claims, could have been achieved by putting more money in the 4G network, rather than a new technology. Other different voices have suggested that a focus on rolling out wider rural broadband access and addressing current network coverage would be more beneficial to the UK as a whole.

Obviously, 5G will also bring a cost to consumers. It requires a handset for both 5G and 4G, and the first 5G-enabled smart phones are expected in the coming year. With the slow pace of network rollout so far, it is likely that consumers will end up upgrading to a new 5G phone well before 5G becomes widely available in the next couple of years.