【推荐1】In my childhood, my mother spent her evening hours doing something for someone else. Sometimes she knitted(编织)hats for babies, and at other times, she cooked chicken soup for sick neighbors. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when one evening my mother announced she had undertaken a new project.

“I am going to telephone seniors,” said my mother. “Every night? But you don’t even know these people.” “It doesn’t matter,” she said, “What’s important is that I listen.”

I was sixteen years old and couldn’t understand why my mother was willing to spend her evenings talking to strangers. She had friends and my two older sisters to call if she felt lonely. “They will talk your ear off. Some people didn’t even stop to catch breath.” I said.

My attitude didn’t stop my mother’s enthusiasm for the project. That evening, she settled on the sofa and dialed. When she finished the call, I said, “Why do you care whether she had cookies or rice pudding for dessert? ” My mother grasped one of my hands and said in a proud tune, “I’m the only person she talked to today.”

It took me more than thirty years to fully understand the meaning of that statement. Now, as my mother is near eighty, I find myself thinking about those nightly calls she used to make. I am often the only person who telephones my mother, and sometimes I’m the only person she speaks to all day. I ask her what she cooked for dinner, but mostly I just listen as she describes a walk she took, or how her dog Lucky stole foods from the refrigerator. I realize that my mother’s calls were life lines that ensured housebound seniors remained connected to the world. Without her, their world would have been empty.

【推荐3】Alice Walker makes her living by writing. And her poems, short stories, and novels have won many prizes for her. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia; she went to public schools there, and then to Spelman College in Atlanta before coming to New York to attend Sarah Lawrence College, from which she graduated in 1965.For a time she lived in Jackson, Mississippi, with her lawyer husband and small daughter.

About Langston Hughes: American Poet, her first book for children, she says,“ After my first meeting with Langston Hughes, I promised I would write a book for children someday. Why? Because I, at twenty-two, knew next to nothing of his work, and he didn’t scold me. He just gave me a pile of his books. And he was kind to me. I will always be thankful that in his warmth he fulfilled my deepest dream (and need) of what a poet should be.”

“To me he is not dead at all. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of him or speak of him. Once, just before he died, when he was sick with the flu, I took him a full basket of oranges. The joy I felt in giving that simple gift is undiminished (没有减弱) by time. He said he liked oranges, too.”

【推荐1】“The moment before they called my name, I was really nervous because the other finalists’ presentations are really good and I thought they would win,” Kara Fan, 14, who has won America’ s Top Young Scientist, told Yahoo Finance. “When they announced my name, I was really surprised actually.”

To win that claim, Fan’ s nano-particle liquid bandage had to surpass the experiments of hundreds of fifth to eighth graders as well as nine other finalists. Fan started developing her liquid bandage in April 2019 to fight the overuse of antibiotics (抗生素).

According to the CDC, roughly 2 million people every year suffer a bacterial infection in the U. S. and about 23, 000 passed away as a result. If left alone, a UN study reported, drug- resistant diseases or the “superbug” could lead to 10 million deaths across the globe by 2050. When Fan’ s sprayable bandage dries on a person’ s skin, it creates a thin layer that protects the wounded area while breaking the cell wall and killing the bacteria on the skin. After experimenting with copper nitrate (硝酸铜) to fight bacteria, switching to the silver nitrate ended up being the major catalyst (催化剂) to seeing results for her award-winning project.

“Thousands of years ago, ancient people would use copper and silver to eat with and they would drink water from like copper bowls to kill bacteria,” Fan explained. “I found out that it didn’t work. So I used nano silver.”

Sir Alexander Fleming’ s discovery of penicillin— a type of antibiotic— is Fan’ s favorite scientific discovery. That said, she doesn’ t think humans should rely too heavily on penicillin.

Following her years at Westview High School, Fan hopes to continue her biology track at Stanford University. Along with the ＄ 25, 000 cash prize she won on October 29, becoming America’ s Top Young Scientist may help get the private university’ s attention.

【推荐3】I asked three of my friends how they had changed since they came to our middle school.And here are their answers.