Ami: Child of the Stars (《阿米：星星的孩子》) tells a story of Pedro and his friend Ami. On a quiet summer night, a boy gets off his spaceship and meets with Pedro. He tells Pedro that he is from a star and he is Pedro’s friend. His name is so strange that Pedro decides to call him Ami instead. Ami then tells him lots of things.

Ami says that if Pedro concentrates on imagining flying. He will be able to fly like a bird happily. That actually happens later. Ami tells Pedro not to worry about those things that have not happened yet, or he won’t appreciate what is happening now. He will miss the beauty of each day and won’t believe in the miracles around him.

Later, Ami takes Pedro to his spaceship and they travel around the earth together. They have visited many cities like Bombay, Tokyo and Egypt. There, they see different people and experience different lifestyles. They also fly to the moon and to other stars later on. Pedro learns how people live on other planets.

During their travels, Ami and Pedro also learn the most important law in the universe—love. Ami says, “Development means to get closer to love. If you understand that love is the law of the universe, if you join together as a family, and if you are organized according to love, you’ll survive.”

My name is Lisa, a well-known pianist. My first performance was still clear in my mind, though it happened so long ago.

That night, my piano performance was the most important thing in my family. To see my performance, my grandparents would come by plane. My aunt Dianne, a successful news reporter, would come as well, though she was quite busy with her TV news every night.

Unluckily, I got very nervous before I performed. What was worse, the more I practiced, the more nervous I was. It seemed very difficult for me to win any prize. When it was my turn, I sat down at the piano in my beautiful dress and started to play. To my disappointment (失望), I made a mistake and then another. It seemed that it took me years to finish my performance. I ran off the stage with tears in my eyes. I felt surprised when I saw people stand up and cheer for me. My mom and dad had flowers for me and they all said congratulations to me. But what I wanted to do was to go back home and cry. When we were back home, I locked myself in my bedroom. I couldn’t believe how I could make such silly mistakes after so many years of hard work. Then I heard someone knocking at the door. It was my aunt. She came in and sat by me.

“I still remember my first show on TV.” she said. “I had practiced a thousand times, but I forgot to mention the name of the news and you may not believe I even pronounced (发音) my own name wrongly. Don’t be too hard on yourself. No one can avoid (避免) making mistakes. The key is to face it bravely and learn from it.” Her words made me think a lot.

My aunt is right. We shouldn’t be afraid of mistakes. If we can learn from them, they can make us better.