【推荐1】You may know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” It _________ the idea behind the Living Library project. Like _________ library, a Living Liberty offers readers books, except that these “books” can _________ to you. But these living books are not like anything from a(n) _________ movie — they are people like you and me.

The Living Library project was started in 2000 by a group of young people in Denmark. They wanted to reduce _________ and encourage understanding between people, and they had the idea of bringing together some very different people to communicate _________. These living books were from different cultural backgrounds, nations, educational levels, religions and _________.

Reading living books is very _________: Each book can talk with readers face to face, and sometimes a small group of readers can read one book together. The book and the reader(s) _________ and share different thoughts, ideas, lifestyles and so on.

The project began to gain in __________ in other parts of the world and was introduced to China in 2009. This past April, a wave of Living Library events was held in more than 20 Chinese cities. In Guangzhou, for example, 50 living books were presented to 200 readers.

The event was divided into four rounds; each lasted 40 minutes. In each round, __________ eight readers would read one book together. One of the living books, Tang, suffered from depression. She talked about her experience of fighting depression and also pointed out a problem: People’s __________ about mental illnesses was preventing many patients from getting treatment in time.

In Living Library events like this one, it is not one person __________ another, but someone introducing others to a different idea or way of life. Everyone can raise questions and everyone is __________.

“Everyone is a book,” said Liu Qiongxiong, the organizer of the event in Guangzhou. “By reading others we can better understand each other and__________.”

【推荐2】I have always thought of myself as a writer. When I was two, I loved to sit on the front steps and quietly _________ passers-by and then when I learned to read, _________ turned into an obsession (痴迷). It was a short _________ from loving to see words _________ arranged on a page to wanting to _________ them myself. At seven, I _________ my first “book”, Lost at Sea.

Having read a lot about history, I _________ people and events from the past were more fascinating than people and events in the _________. Learning about times gone by, and the individuals who _________ them, of course, requires __________ for information. When I __________ to do that, I found another obsession: research.

From about age twelve, whenever I read a novel I __________, I would go to the library to find out everything I could about the author’s life. I looked in old newspapers, magazines, and biographies — whatever I could find to try to discover the character of the person who had produced the work that had moved me. Through it all, it was biographies that __________ me most fiercely. It provided a / an __________ into the world of the author in general.

By the end of high school, I could have written a good book about conflicts among authors. __________, I never made the move to write anything based upon the research that I was __________ just for fun. My literary research stayed at the __________ level until 1997 when I wrote my real first __________ , Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy.

The creation of the book __________ from what I had learned about biography and the ways of family life during all my __________ research projects.

【推荐3】There is a saying that “It takes a village to raise a kid”. There’s no better _________ than Hobart, New York, with its eight used bookstores. Not _________ for a community of 351. Gathered on Main Street, the shops form a _________ literary path in the northern Catskills.

Retired piano teacher Don Dales moved and _________ there in 1999. He bought empty storefronts and offered merchants a year of free _________ . In 2001, Bill Adams and his wife, Diana drove through the town. They needed somewhere to _________ their hundreds of books. That summer, they opened Adams’ Antiquarian Books, showcasing classics and _________ , collectable first editions. Their first book sold was on the Celts. “We didn’t have another sale for months,” Diana recalls.

Don, meanwhile, was doing no better. In _________ with Bill and Diana, he worried that he couldn’t rent his buildings. The couple _________ Hay-on-Wye, a village in Wales famous for its 19 bookshops. Don, inspired, became a __________. He ran Quarry Books,__________ mysteries and science fiction.

Liberty Rock Books, named for a Revolutionary War lookout,__________ in 2013. Owners John and James Mahoney possessed thousands of __________, including religious texts. For transportation or sports titles, try More Good Books. History fans love New York Books & Ephemera, which also __________ souvenirs relating to the Empire State Building.

“Everyone has a specialty,” Diana says. “But we work together. Booksellers have keys to each other’s shops, and have made Hobart a travel __________. No wonder people call Hobart the village that books built.”

【推荐3】The White Fence

When my husband, Jerry, died of cancer, I became angry. Life wasn’t fair.

One day, diving down a busy road in my town, I noticed a new fence being built round a house. It had once sat back from a ___________ street. Then the road was ___________, and the house had hardly any front garden at all.

Each time I drove past the house, I watched the rapid progress of the fence. An elderly women added an overhead rose shelf and painted it all snow-white, and then did the whole house to _________.

One day, I ___________ the road to stare long and hard at the fence. The carpenter had done such a magnificent job that I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I turned off the engine, walked over and touched the fence, which ___________ smelled of fresh paint.

“Hi!” I called, waving.

“Well, hey,” she stood up straight.

“I — I — came to see your ___________. It’s beautiful.”

She smiled. “Come and have a drink, and I’ll tell you about it.”

We walked up the back steps, and sat down. I was suddenly overjoyed that I was having a cold drink ___________ the beautiful white fence surrounding me.

“THE FENCE ISN’T FOR ME,” the woman ___________ seriously. “I live alone. But ___________ so many people come by here, I thought they’d enjoy seeing something really pretty. People look at my fence and wave. A few, like you, even stop and have a talk.”

“But didn’t you mind when this once quiet street was widened and there was so much ____________?”

“Change is part of __________ and the making of character. When things happen that you don’t like, you have two choices: you get ____________ or better.”

When I left, she called out, “Come back any time. And leave the gate ____________. It looks more friendly.”

I carefully left the gate half-open and drove off, ____________ something deep inside me. I didn’t know what to call it, but I could picture the hard brick wall round my angry heart ____________. And in its place this neat little white fence was being built.

I planned on leaving the gate open for whatever or whoever might come my way.

【推荐2】Dylan Virtudazo is a little boy living in Houston. With his 7^th birthday party ______ because get-togethers were not allowed at that time, he received some ______ instead of beautifully packed gifts. ______ , he was uncertain about what to do with that. But when his teachers asked students about their New Year plans, it ______ him that he could use his birthday money to ______   the homeless and buy them some other things.

“He’s always been like that.” said Dylan’s mother, Nancy. She ______ a time when Houston was under a hurricane watch and Dylan showed her a handful of coins, saying he had a ______ to give them to the victims for hurricane supplies. During trips to the ______ , Dylan always makes sure that if he gets candy, so do his brothers and sisters. ______ they don’t come to the store. That ______ attitude led Dylan to create “blessing bags” for homeless Houstonians.

Extra ______ from teachers gave him enough money to ______ 50 of them. The “blessing bags” contain ______ like masks, water and snacks and a sincere message, “You matter!” On New Year’s Day, Nancy and her children drove to homeless shelters to ______ the bags. People there accepted the bags in ______ —some even cried.

Dylan’s act was ______ , but it made a big difference, helping ______ the homeless people’s holiday. Nancy said. “We are so ______ of him. I hope his story never ______ and that he continues to set an example to his generation. We adults need to water the seed of ______ put in kids`—for a better future.”