【推荐1】My family has a tradition of holding garage sales (旧货出售). On a Saturday afternoon back in 2002, just when my aunt Lorraine was starting to pack up, I discovered my very own treasure — a pair of black boots. Although they weren't anything fashionable, they caught my eye. Plus they were only two dollars. She noticed me eyeing them up and said I could have them for fifty cents.

Even better! I thought to myself as I pulled them on. They were the perfect fit.

When I handed over the money little did I know that these boots would accompany me on some of my greatest adventures. Each year I make a journey overseas and that year, I was making arrangements to visit Helsinki (the capital of Finland), so naturally, I packed the boots. It was winter, but the boots protected my feet from the cold weather. I wore them everywhere. The boots even accompanied me as I walked through the night to find live music. I felt right at home among old friends.

In 2009, I went to Aunt Lorraine's home to attend my cousin Jason's birthday party. While we were talking, Jason stared at my boots.

He asked, “Where did you get those boots?”

“I bought them at your family's garage sale,” I responded.

Jason flew into a rage. “Mum! You sold my boots? I bought them in Milan and I've worn them through New York, London, Berlin and Paris,” he shouted.

After a silence, however, he laughed and said, “Thanks a lot, Mum!” We spent the rest of the evening sharing memories of the journeys we'd both had wearing the same pair of boots.

The boots are no longer fit for wear, but I have held on to them as a memento (纪念物) of the last decade, the places we have walked and the memories we now share.

【推荐2】Fear is a fact of life everyone faces from time to time. In most cases fear is a healthy reaction to a dangerous situation. But sometimes fear can be so extreme that it interferes with normal living. That is what happened to me driving cross-country last summer.

I’d agreed to help my brother, Mac, move from the East Coast to California. He would drive a rental truck loaded with his belongings and I would follow him in his car, then fly back. We figured it would be a simple trip, with four or five motel (motorists’ hotel) stops along the way.

Living and working in coastal Georgia for most of my life, I did not have a great deal of long-distance driving experience. Looking back on it today, I can see that I’d always felt a sudden, sharp pain of fear when driving over small bridges and along hilly highways. And as I was getting ready for the trip I had an unclear concern about the steep mountain roads that lay ahead. But I thought I would get used to them.

As we crossed some high bridges near the Blue Ridge Mountains on the first leg of our trip, a kind of breathlessness gripped me, a sinking, rolling feeling in the pit of my stomach. I tended to move slightly away from the edge of the roadway and the drop-off beyond. My knuckles (指关节) whitened from my tense grip on the steering wheel. At the end of each bridge, a great rush of relief would come over me, only to be replaced in short order by fear of the next obstacle.

When we stopped in Nashville the first night, I mentioned my feelings to Mac, who is the practical sort. “Oh, that’s nothing.” he said cheerfully. “Lots of people hate driving on mountain roads and high bridges. Just turn up the music on your radio and focus on that. Keep your mind occupied.”

【推荐3】The former National Football League player and children’s author Tim Green has added another book to his list of accomplishments: Unstoppable. The book tells the story of a 12-year-old boy named Harrison,who lives in a cruel foster home (寄养家庭) before he finally finds a loving family. Once he settles in and realizes his natural football ability, tragedy strikes again and he loses his leg because of deadly bone cancer. Unstoppable follows Harrison’s incredible journey as he faces many challenges in his life.

Tim Green said he decided to write a novel about a kid facing cancer after watching how his wife fought to survive her own illness. “Her mental and physical toughness was more heroic to me than anything I’d ever seen in the national sports leagues,” Green told TFK kid reporter Zachary J. Lewis.

After watching his wife’s battle, Green said he knew he needed to write about a person who struggled against a serious illness. But because teenagers are the target for his books, he needed to tell the story through the eyes of a teenager.

When friends introduced Jeffrey Keith to Green, Green knew he had found the right person to help him“capture(捕捉) the heroism that it takes to fight cancer”. Cancer survivor Jeffrey Keith lost his leg because of disease at twelve, but he went on to be a goalie(守门员) and was also the first to run3,300miles across the country. When Green heard Jeffrey Keith’s story, he knew it was the perfect narrative on which his next book would be based.

TFK asked Keith what it felt like to read Unstoppable for the first time. “Tim captured what it felt like for me to go through this experience and battle back,” Keith said. “After I read the book, Tim asked me to describe it in one word, and I said ‘awesome’. Tim’s book sends a message to all the kids across the country that are facing obstacles that can have nothing to do with cancer: you are all unstoppable, as long as you believe it.”