【推荐1】I had never really liked reading, and I thought it was a waste of time. But when my teacher told me to go to the library and find a book, I looked for one that I was actually interested in. I love basketball, so I picked out a basketball book which was called Hoops by Walter Dean Myers. It is an amazing story about a high school ball player named Lonnie. He is a great basketball player, and dreams of playing basketball in college someday, and of course in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Lonnie lives in Harlem, NY, and is struggling through poverty and other problems. He doubts his new coach, Carl, and doesn’t think that he will be there for his new team. However, he soon realizes what the man has done in his past, and can completely connect with him. Carl soon makes a huge influence on Lonnie, but they face many challenges.

This book makes me think about how hard it would be to grow up in a rough city. I have realized that basketball is a great way to escape the struggles we face.

From this story, you will learn that the people around you really affect who you are, and how important it is to have the support of family and friends in your life. I have learned a lot from this book, and I think that anyone who reads it will too. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

I am now reading more Walter Dean Myers’ books. A lot of his books are about growing up in Harlem, just like he once did. He has become my favorite author.

【推荐1】A woman held her phone tightly to her heart the way a church-goer might hold a Bible. She was anxious to take a picture of an impressive bunch of flowers that sat not so far away, but first she bad to get through a crowd of others pushing their way to do the same. The cause of this was Bouquets to Art, one of the most popular events at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Flower sellers were asked to create flower arrangements that respond to pieces of art on display, from ancient carvings to contemporary sculptures. It’s extremely attractive and also memorable, to the point that it has become a problem.

In recent years, the de Young received more than a thousand complaints from people who felt that cell phones had spoiled their experience of the exhibit. Institutions of fine art around the world face similar problems as the desire to take photographs becomes a huge attraction for museums, as well as something that upsets some of their patrons (资助人). So the de Young responded with a kind of compromise: carving out “photo free” hours during the exhibition’s six-day run.

One common complaint about the effect of social media on museum culture is that people seem to be missing out on experiences because they are so busy collecting evidence of them. A study recently published in the journal Psychological Science suggests there is some truth to this. It finds that people, who keep taking photos of an exhibit and posting them on social media rather than simply observing it, have a hard time remembering what they see. But the issue is complex for the professionals running museums. Linda Butler, the de Young’s head of marketing and visitor experience, acknowledges that not everyone wants a museum to be “a photo-taking playland”. Yet a lot of people do and she believes that the de Young is in no position to judge one reason for buying a $28 ticket to be more reasonable than another. “If we removed social media and photography,” she says. “We would risk becoming unimportant.”

【推荐2】Ecology is a complicated thing. c Given the facts that elephant damage often kills trees and bush fires often kill trees, a combination of the two will make things worse. However, as research shows just published in Biotropica, by Benjamin Wigley of Nelson Mandela University, if a tree has already been damaged, fire can actually help to make things better.

Since 1954，the Kruger National Park has been the site of experiments. Dr Wigley carried out these experiments by looking at trees in three different zones. In one of these zones, the vegetation (植被) was burned every year. In the second it was burned every other year. The third zone, by contrast, was actively protected from fire. To keep things consistent, he only looked at the fate of a single tree species, the marula (玛鲁拉树), whose bark is often eaten by elephants. In July 2016, he and his colleagues identified 20 marulas in every zone and used a hammer and a knife to remove a 5 cm circular section of bark from each of them.

To their surprise, damaged trees in the annual burnt zone regrew 98% of their lost bark during the two years of the study. Those living in the second burnt zone regrew 92% of it. But those in the zone where fires were banned regrew only 72%.

The researchers also found something else around the trees' wounds: ants. Ten of the 20 trees in the fire-banned zone developed ant colonies in their wounds. The ants were known to damage tissue healing. By contrast, only five trees in the second zone and three in the annual zone developed ants' nests in their wounds.

It looks, therefore, as if bush fires are burning trees'。wounds to kill the ants. Though such fires are surely harmful to healthy trees, it seems, in an example of two negatives making a positive, as if they are actually helpful to sick ones.

【推荐3】As April 23 marks World Book Day, it’s time to put aside your smart phone and open a book. Cheaper and lighter, digital books have become many people’s choices in the present day. Yet the touch and smell of a paper copy can be irreplaceable.

For lovers of paper books, a nice, strong bag is a must-have. Among the ways to carry books in ancient China, there was a kind of bamboo box. Xuan Zang, a noted Buddhist monk from the Tang Dynasty（618-907）, carried such a box during his journey to India. Similar box to carry books also appeared in the 1987 film, A Chinese Ghost Story, a remake of the 1960 original movie with the same title.

Compared to the ancients, modern people have more choices to carry books. School bags that look like suitcases are pretty popular among elementary school students in China. If you see a little girl pulling a bright pink suitcase on the street in the morning, don’t be misled by her bag. She is not going on vacation alone；she is just on her way to school. Such a school bag seems a bit of an exaggeration（夸张）, yet can ease the burden on young children’s shoulders from carrying heavy text books.

Bags for adults to carry books are of various sorts, and some are even like a book itself. French designer Olympia Le-Tan created a series of clutch bags（女式手提包）that have the very look of classic book facsimiles（复制品）in 2009. The clutches won the love of many celebrities and fashion pioneers, appearing on the red carpet and high street. And jane bags by Gabriela Hearst shone at the 2018 autumn winter fashion shows. The special shape of the new designs was inspired by the pages of an open book. Despite the colorful bags, the books in them are more important.