3 . You’ve sized up the benefits of volunteering, looked over your schedule, and decided you have both the time and desire to give back to your community.     1     Here are some tips to find and get suitable volunteer opportunities in your area — or farther afield.

Identify your values.

    2     Make a list of the values that drive you, or the issues you care about, and then look for organizations with complementary (互补的) missions and opportunities. For instance, if your primary motivation is to strengthen social connections with peers, you might look to organizations such as school groups that require interaction with other parents, or neighbors.

If you’re motivated to serve the less fortunate, you might target organizations that work with housing-insecure populations, people with disabilities or members of historically disadvantaged groups. Motivations for volunteering are as diverse as the volunteers harboring them.     3    

Try to involve the whole family.

Many parents who volunteer turn giving back into a family affair. Community service is a great way to teach kids the value of selflessness.     4     Look for volunteer engagements that welcome people of all ages and abilities, and schedule time for the whole family to participate —whether that means spending an afternoon picking up trash on the side of the highway, or a week in a faraway flood zone.

    5    

Once you find a well-run organization that aligns with (符合) your availability, values, talents, and objectives, work with your contact there to set a volunteer schedule that fits your life. If you’re exploring a frequent engagement — say, a weekly or biweekly commitment —think carefully about how much time you can afford to donate. It’s better to commit to shorter or less frequent volunteer hours than to take on an unmanageable workload.

5 . April 23 marks World Book and Copyright Day. Here are four widely praised books which received agreeably high scores on Douban in China.

The Death of a Princess is a work of legal history. The author describes in detail the classic case of Princess Lanling of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), who was beaten by her husband and suffered the loss of her baby, leading to her death, exploring important and profound legal and married moral issues such as domestic violence and the low status (地位) of women.

Author Hu Anyan has worked as a delivery man, a night shift stock picker, a convenience store clerk and a security guard. He transforms the bits and pieces of everyday life and the joys and sorrows of work into a sincere narrative. He finally realizes that a life filled with anger is not worth living.

Author Ma Boyong, who has written The Longest Day in Chang’an, uses the classic Journey to the West as a backdrop to describe a series of workplace issues, such as how to write a work report during a project and how to respond to emergencies.

Written by Choi Eun-young, the book is a female version of Yu Hua’s To Live. It tells the story of the friendship and struggle of four generations of women. The women in the book are no longer characters to be pitied against one another, nor do they play supporting roles in the lives of men.

6 . Before traveling to Lake Tahoe, make sure your plans are in order. Complete vacation packages of the area are now offered online.

8 . The event took place on Sunday, the 25^th of June. On that particular day, a south wind had been gusting (劲吹) on and off all morning. It was not strong enough to cause us any concern, so we carried on our daily work, not doubting what was about to happen.

The storm gave us very little warning. Black clouds appeared over the distant horizon (地平线) so suddenly that we were taken by surprise. Even then, we were not really worried, as the clouds seemed to be moving over our house and towards the distant mountains. Then, just as the clouds had moved inland, the wind suddenly blew around in a full circle and we were facing a major storm.

Very soon, we were busily preparing for the worst. The whole family had experienced such a storm before and everyone remembered the damage it had caused to stock and crops. There was very little we could do about the crops. But we needed to protect the animals in case the river flooded again. My older brother called his sheep-dog and began driving our small flock of sheep to higher ground above the river. If the river flooded, they should be safe there.

In the meantime, my father was mending a shed roof that had partly fallen down after many years of fine service. If the tin flew off, it could damage the house. My younger brother began hurriedly carrying firewood under the shelter. My job was to help Mum board up the windows. If the storm developed into a cyclone (旋风)，the boards would protect the glass.

The storm lasted for four hours, pouring more rain on us than we had seen in the last five years. As expected, the river broke its banks and came slowly up towards the house and the stock.

Then, just as we were beginning to lose hope, the storm stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The animals were safe, and the roof was still nailed on. “All’s well that ends well ,” said my mother.