【推荐1】Can you imagine how great the United Kingdom is? The queen of Britain, Queen Elizabeth II, is also the queen of other 16 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Jamaica. Her face is seen on stamps and coins all around the world.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born in London on April 21st 1926. Her parents were George, the Duke of York, and Elizabeth, the daughter of the Earl and Count-ness of Strathmore. As a child, Princess Elizabeth lived with her parents and younger sister in London and Windsor. Every summer, she traveled to Scotland to visit her mother’s parents. She was interested in all sorts of sports, but her favorites were horse riding and swimming. She was also fond of acting, art and music.

As princess Elizabeth grew older, she started to play a part in British public life. When she was 14, she broadcast a radio message to all the children of Britain and the Common-wealth(共和国). Two years later, she carried out her first public engagement, and started to go on official tours shortly after that. After a tour to South Africa in 1946, she married Philip Mountbatten. The couple had four children: Prince Charles, born in 1948, Princess Anne, born in 1950, Prince Andrew, born in 1960 and Prince Edward, born in 1964.

After her father died, Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony held in London in 1953. As a queen, she has many duties, and leads a very busy life. She travels throughout the world, meeting the leaders of other countries, and attends a large number of official functions. She also holds a meeting every week with the British Prime Minister. Every year, on Christmas Day, she broadcast a message to the people of British and the Commonwealth, talking about her hopes for the future.

Queen Elizabeth has been on the throne for more than 40 years and has become one of the most famous women in the world. Lots of people in British believe that she tries hard to understand her people and be a good queen. More than her title, this quality has earned her much love and respect.

【推荐2】A team of researchers spent weeks playing human-vs-rat hide-and-seek which was so much fun that the little rats laughed and jumped for joy.

The small players consisted of six adolescent male rats that were trained to play hide-and-seek against neuroscientist Annika Stefanie Reinhold. The researchers filled a room with hiding places made from different boxes. The little creatures learned that if they began the game inside a closed box, they wee the seekers while being in an open box meant they needed to hide. Soon, the rats became wise, figuring out that transparent boxes make the worst hiding places, and checking spots where their two-legged competitor had hidden before when seeking. The findings are reported in Science.

When they won, the rats were rewarded with tickling (挠痒) instead of food. " They chase our hand, we tickle them from the side, it's like how you play with small kittens or puppies," said co-author Konstantin Hartmann from the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Apart from playing for these interactions, the rats were motivated by the fun of the game. They would let out high-pitched laughter, suggesting they we in high spirits. If you’re wondering why you've never heard a rat laugh, their naughty giggles have to be picked up by scientific equipment as they are too high-pitched to be detected by the human ear. Even more adorably, the test subjects leapt in the air whenever they sniffed out a scientist. Yes,they jumped for joy. And even when the researchers offered food as an end-game reward, the rats postpone accepting them. They seem to want to keep playing the game.

Another sign that the rats were enjoying themselves was that they would often leap away to hide in a new location once they'd been found. Like children they wanted to keep playing again and again.

The team recorded nerve signals coming from the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质)of the rats' brains, an area involved in leaning. While research like this could tell us more about learn in the mammals, it could also help us better understand the importance of play. Future studies would look into the effects that not being allowed playtime might have on the brain, revealing how children and teenagers denied the opportunity to have fun and play with others might be affected.

【推荐3】Several months ago, I attended the opening event for a new children’s literacy (读写能力) campaign at the Burbank Library in California. The campaign is called Marvel Comics Close- Up, aimed at using comic books to encourage kids to read. Disney and Marvel donated 210,000 books to libraries and schools across the country.

Stars from Disney XD participated. They read Spider-Man comic books to 70 kids from Boys & Girls Clubs in southern California. The stars included Drake Bell (Ultimate Spider-Man), Dylan Riley Snyder (Kickin’ it), Olivia Holt (Kickin’ It) and Coie Jenson (Crash & Bernstein).

Drake Bell said that the Marvel reading campaign is aimed at kids who are bored with books, believing comic books are the answer for kids who say they’d rather play video games. “Comic books really get you into the story,” he told TFK(Time For Kids). “They are not just words or pictures on a page.”

Dylan Riley Snyder knows from his experiences that comic books have the power to inspire kids' imagination. His mom was a teacher and she used comic books to interest students who thought they weren't interested in reading. Dylan attended these classes. He would read the comic books and draw the characters along with the students. “It was a great way for these kids to start to enjoy reading,” Dylan said. “That’s how I got interested in reading too. Now I can share my love for comic books with others through the Marvel Comics Close-Up program.”

David Levine is the Vice President of Disney XD Worldwide. He said great stories and great characters, like Spider-Man and The Avengers, were key to making reading fun. “Reading can encourage you to explore new things and take you to all sorts of exciting places,” he told TFK.