Have you seen this meme (表情包) online before? The man in the meme is Michael Rosen, a famous British children’s book writer who has written about 140 books. He’s known as “nice granddad” in China.

Michael Rosen was born in Middlesex, the UK in 1946. His parents were both teachers. Michael Rosen started writing poems about people he knew when he was twelve years old.

Michael Rosen is busy with the teaching of writing and the reading of literature (文学作品) in schools. He visits schools to encourage children with his love for books and poems. He is one of the first poets to make visits to schools around the UK and the world. He is also one of the first poets to write about his own childhood (童年) experiences and to write them in the language children actually use.

However, life hasn’t always treated Rosen well. Eddie, his second son, died at the age of 18. Rosen couldn’t forget how he felt. The death of his son was the inspiration (灵感) for Michael Rosen’s Sad Book. In March 2020, Rosen was sent to the hospital because of COVID-19. Later, Rosen recovered (恢复), but one of his ears went deaf and he had to learn how to stand up again, just like a kid. However, for Rosen, it was not the end of the world. He turned the sad experience into writing. He wrote the book Many Different Kinds of Love and faced up to life with the most important thing — optimistic (乐观的) spirit.

7th floor-Strawberries. 15th floor-Carrots. It sounds like you’re in the lift of a supermarket, but actually this describes a vertical farm (垂直农场)!

Vertical farming means growing plants on different levels in tall buildings. There is running water, and sunlight enters through glass windows with LED lights for plants that don’t receive direct sunlight at some points of the day. Also, farmers in vertical farms have controlled the temperature and humidity (湿度). So no matter what the weather is like outside, the plants can continue growing! It’s possible to grow crops (庄稼) all year round.

Vertical farming began as an idea at Columbia University in New York City in 1999. Dickson Despommier, a professor, challenged his students to come up with ways to feed the population of Manhattan by growing food in the city. One idea was to use rooftop (外屋顶) gardens, but that could only feed 2% of the population. Out of nowhere, Despommier suggested that people could grow plants in tall buildings in the city. Then vertical farming was born!

Today, vertical farming is a reality and it’s growing in popularity. As is known to us, the population of the world will become larger and larger, so we will need more food. Cutting down forests to grow crops would do harm to the environment, so vertical farms can be a solution.

Despommier says that a 30-storey 2-hectare (30层两公顷的) vertical farm can grow the same amount of crops in a year as a normal 1,000-hectare farm! In 2012, the world’s first commercial (商业的) vertical farm opened in Singapore. Today, there are many vertical farms around the world.

A．

B．

C．

D．