【推荐2】Since the Sydney Story Factory opened in Redfern, my colleagues and I have taken over 8,000 young people aged 7 to 17.

Back in 2011, it seemed a risky decision to leave my job as a journalist to run the Sydney Story Factory. But later every time I see that light go on in a child’s eyes when he understands the power and joy of words, I know I made the right decision.

All our programs end in a publication. This might be an animation (动 画 片 )recorded on a DVD, or a beautiful book, but either way, it’s something the students can take home and proudly show to their family. There is nothing like the smile that spreads across the face of   an eight-year-old when he holds that publication in his hands.

There’s one boy called John, I remember-whose mum almost dragged him through the door when we opened. He hated writing. But our teachers didn’t treat him as a kid who was bad at writing; they were curious to find out how he was going to finish his story and what would happen next. And very slowly John’s ideas came. When he threw one out, our teachers would say, “Yes. And?” Then he’d have another idea. At the end of that first course, he’d worked with a small group to produce a short animated film. Gradually, John came back himself. Nearly four years later he’s still coming.

John is a very different boy from the one who first walked through our door. He’s doing better at school, and he’s far more confident. When younger kids come into the Sydney Story Factory, he welcomes them and shows them around. We don’t claim credit for all of that, of course, but some part of it is because he has become something he never thought would be: a writer.

【推荐3】There was once a lonely girl who longed so much for love. One day while she was walking in the woods she found two starving birds.     1      She cared them with love and the birds grew strong. Every morning they greeted her with a wonderful song. The girl felt the great love from the birds.

    2    . The larger and the stronger of the two birds flew from the cage. The girl was so frightened that he would fly away. As he flew close, she grasped him wildly. Her heart felt glad at her success in capturing him.     3     . She opened her hand and stared in horror at the dead bird. Her desperate love had killed him.

She noticed the other bird moving back and forth on the edge of the cage. She could feel his great need for freedom. He needed to fly into the clear, blue sky.     4    . The bird circled once, twice, three times.

The girl watched delightedly at the bird’s enjoyment.     5     . She wanted the bird to be happy. Suddenly the bird flew closer and landed softly on her shoulder. It sang the sweetest songs that she had ever heard.

The fastest way to lose love is to hold on it too tight, while the best way to keep love is to give it wings!

【推荐2】Why do people throw stuffed animals(毛绒动物玩具)at figure skaters?

Moments after figure skaters finish their program, crazy fans throw gifts onto the ice.    1    As NBC Sports reports, Sasha Cohen was once given several cashmere sweaters; Canada’s Elvis Stojko and Parick Chan have walked away with swimsuits; Debi Thomas even got a box of Domino’s pizza after her performance at the i987 world championships.

Flowers and clothing aside, the post-program offerings are mostly stuffed animals.    2    , though it’s not clear exactly how or when this custom began. First, flowers, once the go-to item to throw to skaters, are dirty. The ”cleaners“-the kids who skate around collecting all the gifts between the programs have a much easier time picking these stuffed toys up than hurriedly clearing every petal(花新)and leaf away that fell off the flowers.

    3    ,In 1989, US Figure Skating banned (禁止)sports halls hosting national championships from selling flowers. And ahead of the 2002 national championships, the organization completely forbade fans from bringing their own flowers to the halls at all.”    4    . Even when they’re wrapped, the petal and leaf fall out and become a disaster,“ Larry Kriwanek, chair of the event’s organizing committee, said. Instead, fans could buy already-authorized(已授权的)stuffed animals inside the halls and show their favorite skaters with those.

There’s another benefit of choosing a stuffed animal    5    .”We sometimes will get stuffed animals made in custom costumes to match what we’re wearing,“ American ice dancer Meryl Davis said. It turns out that skaters often do try to take especially meaningful or thoughtful gifts home with them.

【推荐2】For a teenager whose chances of survival were slim when he was born, just making it to the starting line at the Olympics is a miraculous achievement in itself.

William Flaherty was born in Cincinnati. When he was 3, he was diagnosed with HLH. It is an often-fatal disease where the immune system attacks the body’s organs. There were days when they didn’t know if he would live through. The 17-year-old Flaherty has had more than 30 operations in his life, including a bone-marrow transplant from his older brother Charles in 2008.

At five, William skied for the first time. It helped a lot with low bone density and got him back in good shape. One year later, William moved to Puerto Rico and fell in love with the island. Puerto Rico doesn’t have snow and balancing the island and skiing life was tough. During the first few years a lot of it was pushed by his father and older brother Charles—himself a former Olympic skier. Motivated by his older brother, William wanted to give it a try himself. When he brought up to represent Puerto Rico in Alpine skiing, his friends laughed. However, he didn’t let it hold him back.

As a teenager, Flaherty had to balance his training with medical appointments and going to school. Even a cold could lay him up for two weeks, so William took extra pre-cautions over the last two years. While training, he wore an N95 mask the whole time and couldn’t ride the lift with anyone. After training, he came home directly, hid in his bedroom and stayed away from people. He managed to maintain straight A’s despite having to study on chairlifts and do final exams sometimes only days before racing. He had his English final three days before he left for Beijing.

“All my medical problems have definitely helped with my motivation. Skiing is really helpful because it forces me to focus on one thing. I really want to prove to all the other transplant survivors that you can do whatever you want in life. Move on with your life and achieve whatever you want,” he said.

【推荐3】Frederick Phiri, at just 22, started to earn an international reputation for being able to make complex and elegant sculptures from scrap metal (金属废料) found in his community.

Phiri’s father died when he was starting primary school. Then his mother abandoned him and he had to stay with his grandfather. His grandfather paid for his schooling through primary school but when he entered secondary school, he had to get various jobs to pay for his fees. Yet even in school, he was always drawing and making things in class.

After graduating, he did what he could to support himself by making animal sculptures from wires and sold them to tourists. His work was so popular that it caught the eye of Karen Beattie, director of Project Luangwa, a nonprofit dedicated to education and economic development in central Africa.

“I introduced him to a local welder (焊工),” Beattie told Newsweek.

In 2017, Phiri worked with welder Moses Mbewe during the rainy season, helping to make a complex set of doors for Project Luangwa. The piece sparked an idea in Beattie’s mind “handed him a bunch of scrap metal and said, ‘Make something with this.’ And he did. It was wonderful.”

Today, Phiri continues his art, using pieces of junk people bring him — keys, broken bike chains, old metal plugs and whatever scrap metal is lying around. He then turns the junk into abstract animals — elephants, cranes, giraffes, chameleons — and sells them at Project Luangwa headquarters. The community has recognized his talents.

“My dream is to earn enough to study art at the Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka and be able to make a living from it,” Phiri said, “And then to make very large sculptures.”