【推荐1】A six-year-old longing to keep a unicorn (独角兽) in her backyard figured she’d get the hard part out of the way first.

Last November, Madeline wrote a letter to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control with a straightforward request. “Dear LA County, I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard if I can find one. Please send me a letter in response.”

Director Mayeda replied two weeks later. The department does in fact license unicorns, she said, under certain conditions. Those include polishing the unicorn’s horn at least once a month with a soft cloth, feeding it watermelon at least once a week, covering it with only sparkles and giving it regular access to sunlight, moonbeams and rainbows. And, because unicorns are indeed very rare to find, the department is also giving Madeline a toy unicorn to keep her company during her search, as a token of appreciation.

“It is always rewarding to hear from young people who thoughtfully consider the requirements of providing a loving home for animals,” Mayeda wrote in the letter. “I like your sense of responsible pet ownership to seek permission in advance to keep a unicorn in Los Angeles County.”

Mayeda told the Washington Post that this is the first time the department has received a request for a license for a unicorn or any mythical creature. They were impressed with the first-grader for wanting to ask permission in the first place, and doing her research to work out how to go about that. She and her colleagues deal with a lot of “life-and-death” issues on the job, whether that’s seeing cases of animal abuse or animals hurting people or making decisions about having to put down dangerous or sick animals. So Madeline’s letter has considerably brightened their spirits, and she is due to visit the department this week to discuss her unicorn license application. Safe to say, she’s in for a magical surprise.

【推荐3】One day after more than a month of classes, I read aloud a paragraph from my book, recognizing all of the characters smoothly except one. I sat back and started to register a sense of achievement: I was actually reading Chinese. The language was starting to make sense. But before the sense of satisfaction was half formed, Teacher Liao said, “Budui!”

It meant, literally, “Not correct.” You could also translate it as “no”, “wrong”, “nope”, “uh-uh” and “flatly and clearly incorrect”. There were many Chinese words that I didn’t know, but I knew that one well.

A voice in my head whined “All of the rest of them were right; isn’t that worth something? ” But for Teacher Liao it didn’t work like that. If one character was wrong, it was simply budui.

“What’s this word?” I asked, pointing at the character I had missed.

“Zhe — the zhe in Zhejiang.”

“The third tone?”

“The fourth tone.”

I breathed deeply and read the section again, and this time I did it perfectly. That was a victory — I turned to Teacher Liao and my eyes said (or at least I imagined them saying) “How do you like me now?” There seemed to be some satisfaction in her eyes, but she simply said, “Read the next one.”

It was her way of teaching. Success was expected and failure was criticized and immediately corrected. You were right or you were budui; there was no middle ground.

I grew to hate budui. The bu was a rising tone and the dui dropped abruptly, just as my confidence was built and then it broke down all at once. And it bothered me all the more because I knew that Teacher Liao was only telling the truth: everything I did with the language was budui. I was an adult, and as an adult I should be able to accept criticism where it was needed. But that wasn’t the American way; I wanted to be praised for my effort; I didn’t mind criticism as long as it was candy-coated. For Teacher Liao, the single B on the report card matters much more than all the A’s that surround it: Keep working; you haven’t achieved anything yet.

And so I worked harder. I was frustrated but I was also stubborn; I was determined to show Teacher Liao that I was dui.

【推荐2】When I was in fourth grade, I worked part-time as a paperboy, Mrs. Stanley was one of my customers. She’d watch me coining down her street, and by the time I’d hiked up to her doorstep, there’d be a cold drink waiting. I’d sit and drink while she talked, Mrs. Stanley talked mostly about her dead husband, “Mr. Stanley and I went shopping this morning,” she’d say. The first time she said that, soda went up my nose.

I told my father how Mrs. Stanley talked as if Mr. Stanley were still alive. Dad said she was probably lonely, and that I ought to sit and listen and nod my head and smile, and maybe she’d work it out of her system. So that’s what I did, and it turned out Dad was right. After a while she seemed content to leave her husband over at the cemetery (墓地).

I finally quit delivering newspapers and didn’t see Mrs. Stanley for several years. Then we crossed paths at a church fund-raiser. She was spooning mashed potatoes and looking happy. Four years before, she’d had to offer her paperboy a drink to have someone to talk with. Now she had friends. Her husband was gone, but life went on.

I live in the city now, and my paperboy is a lady named Edna with three kids. She asks me how I’m doing. When I don’t say “fine,” she sticks around to hear my problems. She’s lived in the city most of her life, but she knows about community. Community isn’t so much a place as it is a state of mind. You find it whenever people ask how you’re doing because they care, and not because they’re getting paid to do so. Sometimes it’s good to just smile, nod your head and listen.