【推荐3】Perhaps you’ve already watched or heard about Readers, a TV show that has recently become popular. It invites different people to read aloud on stage, as well as tell the touching stories about them. They can read everything, like poems, novels and letters.

Many people are fans of the show and begin to enjoy reading aloud at home. Now the show gives people a special place to read across China. Reading pavilions (亭子) are now in cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou and Xi’an.

The pavilion is quite small. Only one person can come into it each time. There is a microphone in it and it records people’s voices. Everyone can read anything they like for three minutes in the pavilion. The show will later pick some of the readers and invite them to read on TV.

People of all ages have come and read in the pavilion. “Reading should be just like singing and talking,” said Dong Qing, the hostess of the show. “We can actually express our deep feelings through reading aloud.”

“Both the TV show and the pavilion are promoting reading among the public (公众),” reported China Youth Daily. Quite a lot of people are more and more interested in reading. In fact, this is also what our country is trying to do now.

John James Audubon was born on April 26, 1785 in Haiti. John spent much of his childhood in France where he spent many hours outdoors painting the world around him. In the 1830s he moved to the United States, and found the animals in his new home were the most beautiful in the world. He especially enjoyed watching the birds.

John spent much of his early adulthood trying and failing at many businesses in the United States. Instead of taking care of business, John was usually off exploring in the wilderness.

At first, John spent this time hunting for food and sport, but he became more interested in the birds he met. He began studying them, trying to learn the differences between the species. He often painted the birds he was watching.

In 1819, John didn’t have enough money to pay his bills, and his family went bankrupt. So he spent time improving his painting skills and began to sell his pictures. He discovered that he could earn some money doing something he really enjoyed. John declared that he intended to paint every bird species in North America.

John wanted to have his collection of bird paintings published. He found no one in America who was willing to publish his works, so in 1826, John headed for London. He and his paintings were well-received because it gave people in London an opportunity to see what wildlife in faraway America looked like.

It wasn’t long before he was able to publish his masterpiece, Birds of America. Some people called his work the “Double Elephant Folio” because the pages were over three feet tall and over two feet wide.

The public loved John’s books and he had finally achieved financial success He also enjoyed fame as one of the greatest naturalists and artists of his time. John James Audubon died on January 27, 1851. Even today, over 150 years after his death, his paintings are still praised.

【推荐2】Computers can do lots of jobs. They can do math, store information and play music. You can write or play games with a computer.

The first computers were very big. They were the size of a room! They were so big that people didn’t have them at home. Early computers could only do simple math like a calculator (计算器). In the 1930s, Alan Turing had the idea for a computer to do different things.

In 1958 Jack Kilby invented the microchip (芯片). Microchips are tiny but can store lots of information. They helped make computers smaller. In the 1970s, computers were smaller and cheaper so people started to use them at home. In the 1980s, computer games were very popular. Lots of people bought computers just to play games.

In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web. Now people all over the world can look for and share information on websites.

Today people can use smartphones to play games, send emails and go on the Internet. In the past, a simple computer was the size of a room. Now it can be put in your pocket!

【推荐3】As teenagers, you have many dreams. If you find a dream, what do you do with it? Follow Your Heart by Australian writer Andrew Matthews tells us that making our dreams real is life’s biggest challenge.

You may think you are not very good at some school subjects, or that it is hard for you to become a writer. These kinds of ideas stop you from getting your dream, the book says. It may be useful for you to learn a few new words a day if you want to be good at English.

In fact, everyone can make his dream come true. The first thing you must do is to remember what your dream is.

Don’t let it leave your heart. Keep telling yourself what you want. Do this little by little and your dream will come true faster because a big dream comes from many small dreams.

You must also never give up your dream. The biggest difficulty comes from yourself. You need to decide what is the most important. Studying, but not watching TV will help you do better in your work.

As you get closer to your dream, it may change a little. This is good as you have the chance to learn more things and find new interests.