Our school will hold a book review meeting next month. You have to choose one of the following books and write a book review. Then send it to 12636789@qq.com.

Book List
	The 47 People You’ll Meet in Middle School by Kristin Mahoney You can get Gus’s advice about growing. Funny and real, The 47 People You’ll Meet in Middle School perfectly shows the growing pains and joys.
	My Last Best Friend by Julie Bowe Losing a friend is hard at any age. After her best friend moves away, fourth-grader Ida May decides not to make another best friend. Author Julie Bowe gives advice about making new friends.
	Tight by Torrey Maldonado It may be hard for middle schoolers to make decisions. When his friend Mike forces him to accept the foolish ideas, Bryan doesn’t know how to do. So Bryan looks to his comic book superheroes to guide him down the right path.
	His Dark Materials Series by Philip Pullman A city hidden in the Northern Lights and the mystery of disappearing children make His Dark Materials an amazing series. This fantasy pulls you into a universe (or several) beyond your imagination.

Anderson Carey is 12 years old. One day, he saw a magazine article that interested him. It was about prosthetics (假肢), which can be used to replace a missing body part, like a hand, arm or leg.

The article said people are using 3-D printers to build these devices (装置). Anderson thought this was very cool. He wanted to learn more about it. So Anderson talked to his science teacher, Dr. Holly Martin, about building a prosthetic together. The timing was perfect. Martin had just heard about a group called Enabling the Future. This group asks volunteers to help build robotic arms and legs. The volunteers build them for people who share their stories on the website.

Anderson and Martin looked through the website together. They decided to help a man from the country of Romania. His name is Comel Crismaru, who lost his leg, hand and part of his arm.

In February, Anderson and Martin got to work. Building the robotic arm was not easy. Anderson had some problems. He had hoped to use a 3-D printer at his school. One of the pieces for the arm was bigger than the size of the printer, though.

Soon Anderson had an idea to solve this problem. He reached out to a 3-D printing company in Woodstock, Georgia. The company agreed to help. Anderson and Martin could use their big 3-D printers. After that, Anderson worked on the arm for about three months.

Anderson and Martin sent the arm to Crismaru in May. In August, they received a note. It was from Crismaru’s son. He thanked Anderson and Martin for their help.

Martin said she hopes children and grown-ups who hear about Anderson’s projects will realize that it may be hard to change the world, but they can start with small acts. Some of these can help a person in a “huge way”.

Enjoy Happiness From Sad Music

What would life be like without music? Songs and tunes fill our lives, influencing our emotions, bringing back memories and sometimes making us dance. There is a song for everyone and for every moment, but it seems that it’s sad music that moves us most.

Sad music certainly does its job in making us upset, causing us to feel strong emotions – it’s something we might listen to after a break-up, for example. And a recent study has shown why some people are interested in sad music. Professor David Huron from Ohio State University conducted the research and found the differences between people who love to listen to sad music and those who can’t stand it.

He told the BBC radio programme The Why Factor that it comes down to a natural hormone called prolactin. He says, “As you might have guessed from the name, it’s connected with ‘lactation(哺乳期)’ from breast-feeding. When people cry, they also release prolactin. And, there are circumstances in which prolactin seems to have this comforting effect.” It seems that people who like sad music are maybe getting too much prolactin, or more                           than is normal, and when they hear sad, downbeat music, it gives them a good feeling. But if prolactin isn’t released, or there isn’t enough of it, some people find that sad sounds don’t help to cheer them up.

Previous research by Durham University has also suggested that listening to sad music can lead to pain and sadness; but it can also provide comfort and even enjoyment. A high number of people they surveyed were cheered up by listening to sad songs. Though the feeling may not be exactly the same as happiness, it may be the ability to deal with the sadness that gives the feeling of comfort.

So, reacting to sad music on the radio may have nothing to do with the melancholic sound of a piece of music, but rather a natural chemical reaction taking place in our bodies. Maybe that explanation is music to your ears if you’re wondering why you’ve been listening to Billie on repeat!

Teens’ behavior is difficult to change because they are very sensitive to anything they regard as a danger to their autonomy(自主). And, as many parents know, many problematic behaviors come about because teens aren’t motivated by thinking about long-term results and they won’t be willing to listen when you point out they are doing silly things.

Among other things, these attitudes make it hard to make teens eat healthily. However, a recent study published in PNAS shows that it’s possible to use teens’ social values to motivate them to accept a better diet. The method makes sense, considering that teens are known to place a high value on their social environments.

The study showed teens’ tendency to develop social justice(公正) goals during their adolescent(青春期) years — they often do this as a reaction to authority figures(权威人物) whom they regard as unjust. The researchers designed an intervention(干预) to show the teens how high-calorie/low-nutritional value foods are misleadingly marketed as healthy choices. They also educated teens about poor people and young children were often misled into eating the unhealthiest foods. The intervention framed healthy eating as a way of “sticking it to the man”.

The researchers found that teens who received the intervention were less likely to make unhealthy choices than teens who didn’t. After the intervention, they were more likely to pick snacks like carrots or fruit than they were to pick cookies or chips. They were also less likely to choose sugary drinks and food with low nutritional value.

This study shows that it isn’t necessary to cause long-term results in order to encourage teens to make healthier choices. Instead, educating teens about the symbolic meaning behind the choices that they make seems to be enough to motivate them to make better choices.

This finding has a lot of practical value. Public health professionals are often looking for ways to encourage people to make better food choices, and many food-based habits are developed in childhood and adolescence. If more young people are motivated to make good food choices, those decisions are likely to keep into adulthood and have a lifelong positive effect.

Passing on Beauty of Words

Famous American poet Robert Frost once said, “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” A well-known Chinese translator, Xu Yuanchong, has tried his best to pass on the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry all his life.

Xu has just turned 100 years old. On April 1, China Translation and Publishing House published a series of books about his life and career to pay respects to him.

Since 1978, Xu has published more than 100 translated novels, anthologies(选集) and plays in Chinese, English and French. Especially, he translated Chinese poems into English and French. He is also the first Asian winner of the “Aurora Borealis Prize” for Outstanding Translation of Fiction Literature.

Xu is known to be very strict in his work. He has given his mind to “translating beautifully”. For him, English is a “scientific” language that requires correctness, while Chinese is an “artistic” language that includes a wider range of content. Following this, Xu keeps his translations correct and beautiful.

Through Xu’s translations, historic Chinese wisdom has made an influence on Western societies and the world at large.

For example, when former US president Barack Obama tried to begin a reform(改革), some officers were against at first. But after reading the poem titled Fishing in Snow(《江雪》) translated by Xu, one officer was so impressed with the fisherman’s independent, non-conformist(不墨守成规的) thinking that he chose to support Obama, noted NewsChina.

Having made such great achievements, the 100-year-old is still hard-working. He lives alone in an old house near Peking University. Every day he translates about 1,000 words, working till 3 to 4 a.m., sleeping about 3 hours and getting up at 6 a.m. to continue.