【推荐2】Even then my only friends were made of paper and ink. At school I had learned to read and write long before the other children. Where my school friends saw notches of ink on incomprehensible pages, I saw light, streets and people. Words and the mystery of their hidden science fascinated me, and I saw in them a key with which I could unlock a boundless world, a haven from that home, those streets, and those troubled days in which even I could sense that only a limited fortune awaited me. My father didn’t like to see books in the house. There was something about them---apart from the letters he could not recognize---that offended him. He used to tell me that as soon as I was ten he would send me off to work and that I’d better get rid of all my scatterbrained ideas if I didn’t want to end up a loser, a nobody. I used to hide my books under the mattress and wait for him to go out or fall asleep so that I could read. Once he caught me reading at night and flew into a rage. He tore the book from my hands and flung it out of the window.

“If I catch you wasting electricity again, reading all this nonsense, you’ll be sorry.”

My father was not a miser and, despite the hardships we suffered, whenever he could he gave me a few coins so that I could buy myself some treats like the other children. He was convinced that I spent them on sunflower seeds, or sweets, but I would keep them in a coffee tin under the bed, and when I’d collected enough coins I’d secretly rush out to buy myself a book.

My favorite place in the whole city was the Sempere & Sons Bookshop on Calle Santa Ana. It smelled of old paper and dust and it was my refuge. The bookseller would let me sit on a chair in a corner and read any book I liked to my heart’s content. He hardly ever allowed me to pay for the books he placed in my hands, but when he wasn’t looking I’d leave the coins I’d managed to collect on the counter before I left. It was only small change---if I’d had to buy a book with that pittance (极少的报酬), I would probably have been able to afford only a booklet of cigarette papers. When it was time for me to leave, I would do so dragging my feet, a weight on my soul. If it had been up to me, I would have stayed there forever.

One Christmas Sempere gave me that best gift I had ever received. It was an old volume, read and experienced to the full.

“Great expectations, by Charles Dickens,” I read on the cover.

I was aware that Sempere knew a few authors who frequented his establishment and, judging by the care with which he handled the volume, I thought perhaps this Mr. Dickens was one of them.

“A friend of yours?”

“A lifelong friend. And from now on, he’s your friend too.”

That afternoon I took my new friend home, hidden under my clothes so that my father wouldn’t see it. It was a rainy winter, with days as gray as lead, and I read Great Expectations about nine times, partly because I had no other book at hand, partly because I did not think there could be a better one in the whole world and I was beginning to suspect that Mr. Dickens had written it just for me. Soon I was convinced that I didn’t want to do anything else in life but learn to do what Mr. Dickens had done.

【推荐3】Any C.E.O. book ought to do two things. First, it should be a tale of how the author did it. In Bee Fearless, the 10-year-old C.E.O. Mikayla Ulmer's book, the origin story of Ulmer's company begins wit bee stings (蜇), after which her parents encourage her to learn about the insects rather than fear them. She does some research and finds out that bees are in danger, which raised her concern.

So the 4-year-old sets up a lemonade stand (柠檬汽水摊) outside her house in Austin, Tex.as. She sweetens her lemonade with honey, since bees make it and it's healthy. She sells it with an information card about bees. Her lemonade is awful at first, but a series of experiments produces something better. Best of all she donates money to bee-related organizations.

People around Austin notice it. The owner of a pizza shop offers to sell the drinks if she bottles it. Then she is invited to the TV series “Shark Tank" and later goes to Hollywood. She leaves Hollywood with $60,000 and expands her lemonade business.

So we have our good story. The second task is harder——for anyone, let alone a teenager selling her story to other kids: How do you make people believe that they too could accomplish something like this?

In Ulmer's book, she delivers the key to keeping in contact with customers like writing thank-you notes. She also writes about connecting with the strangers over a brief trade. Many grown-ups never learn the art of selling. Near the book's end, Ulmer describes telling a group of girls in South Africa to "imagine what it would feel like”" to buy things they want without having to ask others for help.

【推荐3】My brush was tiny, more like something you’d use for nail polish. That was suitable because I was struggling to paint the toenails of my dragon shadow puppet (皮影戏偶). Mao Zhongbo, our teacher, noticed my struggle and showed me how to keep my brush from becoming overloaded with pigment (颜料). It was an unexpected personal touch from the resident master at a Beijing hotel.

Shichahai Shadow Art Performance Hotel is a step back in time. Surrounded by a forest of skyscrapers, this little inn is in a hutong. Once you open its massive wooden doors, you enter a calm space that direct your gaze to the framed shadow puppet art that decorates the walls. The mission here is clear: to educate guests about a dying part of Chinese culture before it’s too late.

I visited here last winter. As a theater lover, I hoped to get a behind-the-scenes look into a completely different performing art. The inn provides English interpreters who help make the cultural offerings accessible to its foreign guests. These include performances in the private puppet theater at the hotel and several classes taught by master Mao.

One night, I watched Mao and several other hotel employees perform the classic tale “Turtle and Crane”. The animals’ flexible movements made me forget that puppeteers controlled them. Afterward, I tried my hand at controlling the many sticks needed to make each puppet move effortlessly. My awkward attempts to operate several sticks at once showed why it takes years to master something that looks simple.

I asked Mao whether anyone could learn to be a shadow puppet performer. He paused, then answered, “Like ballet, some have a talent for this and some don’t. Making a puppet seem real comes from the hands, the heart and the brain. It also takes passion.”

At the end of my stay, I went to the lobby to get my dragon shadow puppet. I noticed Mao giving a class to a group of local youngsters, confirming me in my belief that he would inspire a new generation of masters.