【推荐3】We adopted Franny, our crazy and lovable Boston puppy, from a local rescue at the start summer in 2022. However, two weeks later she was nowhere to be found.

We often leave our yard doors open to allow Franny and our another dog, Olive, to visit enclosed backyard and lie on the deck (甲板). My heart sank severely when I failed to find any. No sooner had I sensed that than my wife and I charged to our car to comb for this missing dog swiftly. I was scanning the yards a few blocks over when my phone rang all of a sudden: A woman and her daughter had our dog. Franny had been jogging down the alley (小巷) behind their lawn when they grabbed her and called the number on her tag (标牌).

I located and blocked off the gap in the fence that Franny had squeezed through in case she went out secretly and got lost again. However, she was on the run again one month later.

This time she made it much farther — all the way to a high school, where a man found it eating lunch in the sun with some students. Franny was returned to us, her big brown eyes looking ashamed as the man handed her over to me.

These days, our backyard is secured like a maximum-security prison. We love this crazy dog more than ever, and Franny finally seems content to stay put now.

Mostly, I’m thankful for the kind folks who took the time to grab our adorable runaway and return her to us. All of them refused any recompense, regardless of how much I pushed. These minded our family that the world is filled with those who will go out of their way to lend others a hand.

【推荐1】Becoming Van Gogh: the Paris Years

Vincent van Gogh is considered among the greatest painters of all time. However, he remained needy and unknown throughout his life. In February 1886, Van Gogh was so poor that he could not pay his rent in Belgium. He hastened(赶往)to Paris and moved in with his brother, Theo.

The sudden move ended up being particularly influential to Van Gogh. The Dutch painter was immediately introduced to a community of young avant-garde(前卫派的)artists experimenting with new styles. It was the beginning of a two-year period that resulted in a remarkable shift in his work, from the dark hues(色调)of his early realist paintings to the colorful flowers and portraits that most people associate with Van Gogh today.

At the time, the Impressionists(印象派画家), who were already the dominant force on the French capital’s cultural scene, were busy with their explorations of light and shadow. The Pointillists(点彩派画家)were separating out colors into individual dots to form figures. The Cloisonnists(分隔派画家), meanwhile, were painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark outlines. Van Gogh became exposed to all these styles and many more, and he tried his hand at all of them.

Van Gogh was particularly inspired by the work of Adolphe Monticelli, a painter from Provence who was known for his thickly-painted and colorful flowers. Monticelli’s work was what later drew Van Gogh to the French city of Arles(阿尔勒).

“It was during that period that Van Gogh really became the artist we know today,” said Nicholas Maclean, co-director of the Eykyn Maclean Gallery in London. “He was soaking up all the influences around him. He used their techniques and developed his own style.”

However, it wasn’t only the art Van Gogh saw that influenced his style and choice of subjects. “One of the things that is probably the best-known aspect about Van Gogh is that he had little money, so he was relying on his brother all the time,” Maclean added. “He ended up focusing on flowers because they were available and cheap, but that was also the main factor that led him towards the study of color.”

【推荐2】Selom Sunu is a successful illustrator (插画家), but his path of becoming an illustrator was a long one.

When he was young, Sunu went to school for a while in Ghana. a country in the west Africa. He remembered that there were not many books with Ghanaian children in them, so he wanted to create his own book and illustrate it. “It is important to draw everyone, so everyone feels included.” Sunu says. Then, he moved to America with his family. To start a new and stable life, everyone in the family had to work hard, leaving him little time to paint. After college, Sunu gave up drawing and didn’t draw for eight years.

Then, one day, he came up with an idea for a book and the wish of his youth reoccurred to him. To sharpen his drawing skill, Sunu applied for a course at university but did not get it. The staff told him to draw every day for a year and reapply. So he drew every day, improved, and got accepted onto the course. Through this experience, he realized that one could learn how to draw by coping other drawings that one liked.

“Sometimes it might look like nothing is happening but, if you keep going, you could get opportunities unexpectedly,” Selom Sunu tells The Week Junior. “So don’t give up.”

Recently, Sunu has worked with Disney and illustrated a book called Christmas Carrolls, which he describes as very funny and warm. Sunu is judging this year’s Christmas cover competition. His advice is, “Stay on the brief, but put your own understanding on it. I’m keen to see that people enjoyed drawing the covers, because enjoyment shines through.”