1 . An 80-foot floating library, built in 1963 and called Bokbaten in Norway, visited around 250 small communes along the west coast of Norway twice every year before 2020. Many of the villages along the west coast of Norway are most easily accessible by boat rather than car, so in 1959, a group of librarians got government funding to s art a waterborne library service with special on stress on children’s literature.

Large enough to hold around 6, 000 books, the boat also hosted readings, children’s pays, and other cultural events onboard. It traveled along the coast on 64-day tours during the fall and winter months, welcoming up to 150 children at a time and unloading books for each community to keep until the boat made it swayback the next time around. In summer, the library was repurposed as a tourist boat.

But in 2020, it looked like it might be the end for the library. After nearly 60 years in action, the popular boat had its funding cut by the government, which ended the floating library program. “The book boat is a floating house of culture, which means a lot to thousands of children in the communities that don’t have a good library offering,” Norwegian librarian and author Stig Holmas wrote on Facebook at the time. “It has large numbers of visits,” he went on, adding: “What a shame!”

Luckily, 28 local municipalities (市政当局) banded together in support of the beloved library, helping organize 88 cultural events to make people realize the importance of the boat between August and November 2021. Then, in February 2022, the Fritt Ord Foundation, a private Norwegian nonprofit, provided the library with nearly $300, 000 to keep the program running. Later that year, journalist Maria PileS vas and, whose grandfather built the library, was employed as manager for Bokbaten.

The boat is now a traveling bookstore, and it continues to carry on the tradition of inviting authors, actors and musicians to come aboard and perform live readings for children.

World Book and Copyright Day is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. Each year, on 23 April, celebrations take place all over the world     1    (recognize) the scope (范围) of books — a link between the past and the future, a bridge between generations and across cultures. On this occasion, UNESCO and the international organizations     2    (represent) the three major sectors of the book industry —publishers, booksellers and libraries, select the World Book Capital for     3    year to keep the impetus (动力) of the Day’s celebrations.

23 April is a symbolic date in world literature. It is the date     4     several famous authors, William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all     5    (die). This date was a natural choice for UNESCO’s General Conference,     6    (hold) in Paris in 1995, to pay a world-wide tribute (致敬) to books and authors, encouraging everyone to access books.

By supporting books and copyright     7    (great), UNESCO stands up for creativity,     8    (diverse) and equal access to knowledge, with the work across the board — from the Creative Cities of Literature network     9    promoting literacy and mobile learning. With the active involvement of all     10    (participant): authors, publishers, teachers, librarians and the mass media, World Book and Copyright Day has become a platform to gather together millions of people all around the world.

Children today have many things to play with. They can watch television, surf     1     Internet, or play video games. But what do you think children    2    (do) for fun long ago?

They read books.

Some of you might ask, “Are books     3     (real) fun?” Believe it or not, books provide many things that television or computers cannot. Since books use only words    4    (tell) a story, they can improve your imagination. You can picture the characters and background in your head and you can also imagine how the characters feel.

The words and sentences     5     are used in storytelling are also very interesting and usually cannot     6     (find) often on television or on websites. They are sometimes so beautiful and touching     7     they can bring tears to your eyes.

Books also help us to think harder and     8     (deep). As we continue to read, we ask questions to     9    (our) and try to find answers.

These are some of the     10     (reason) why books are so fun to read.

Remember: the more you read, the more you grow.

7 . A donation by a famous writer has helped start an effort, called the United States of Readers, to help poor children read more books.

The classroom programme is being launched by Scholastic Book Clubs with a donation of $1.5 million from the writer James Patterson.

Scholastic announced the programme recently, aiming to bring books to 32,000 poor children who are in kindergarten to eighth grade.

Judy Newman, president of Scholastic Book Clubs, said that in many communities people don’t have enough money to buy books. So her company “needed to come up with an alternative to our tried-and-true model, because every child needs to be able to choose and own books, and see themselves as a reader!”

Scholastic is a large publisher of books for children and educational materials. Its goal is to get books into schools to increase literacy. The company has publishing rights in the U.S. for books like the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series.

A gift from Patterson helped start the new programme. He is credited with selling millions of books. He has already donated more than $10 million to teachers and students through Scholastic.

He said that he has supported literacy for many years. He believes reading skills are important for the country.

“In many cases, kids simply need access to books— and especially books they want to read— to fall in love with reading, characters, and stories.”

Patterson added that the programme “will bring books to those schools and communities that need them the most, and ones that we haven’t served before.”

Scholastic describes the programme on its website. It says the United States of Reader programme targets children in schools serving poor communities. The company said it has chosen a limited number of schools to take part this year but hopes to expand the programme in the coming years.

8 . Reading while traveling is more than pleasurable; it’s a necessity. It means resting our heads against the window while traveling on the subway, train, or bus, and immersing ourselves in distant worlds and other people’s lives. These waves of words help us make the journey seem shorter and distance ourselves from the noise. It can make our journey meaningful and help us to start our working days with renewed energy and enthusiasm.

Reading while traveling brings a unique context to one’s reading. Many people take specific books with them to tie into the places they’re traveling to. Few things are as enjoyable and satisfying as lifting your eyes to find yourself in the very same country, setting, or context that the book is set in. Of course, it isn’t necessary to visit the exact places in a novel in order to experience the sensations that the author is trying to transmit to you. Just the simple fact of being outside the four walls of your house brings new ingredients to reading: sounds, lights, faces, and sensations, among other things.

Reading while traveling improves your ability to concentrate. The truth is that not all people are able to concentrate on a book while they’re traveling. Our urban world is noisy. However, it’s interesting to note that those who have become used to reading while traveling have developed unique concentration and focusing skills. The ability to read, understand, and visualize other worlds and plots is a skill that can be applied to many other areas in life.

Reading, which is a ticket that transports you to places far beyond your physical destination, is a portable pastime. You don’t have to be in bed or on the couch in order to be able to enjoy a book. Reading while traveling is a great way to make the most of your time, thereby turning those moments of inactivity into very active ones for your brain. The only danger that we could point out is that you may get so immersed in your book that you might miss your stop!

9 . Steph Clemence always intended to go to college. But life tends to throw barriers in the way. Her mother remarried several times. By the time she was a senior in high school, Steph had lived in 25 places. Her stepfather died in a car accident, leaving her mother to support three daughters on a modest income. Paying for college became out of the question.

One afternoon, Dorothy Clarks, her English teacher, walked into the classroom, handing out a paper sheet titled “Mrs. Clark’s Book List”, and said, “Some of you might not go on to higher education, but you can continue to learn.” She created a list of 153 fiction and nonfiction books, covering science, history, economics, politics, and literature. It would, she believed, form the equivalent(等同)of two years at a liberal arts college.

So she began in 1970. Starting at the top, Steph would read every book in the order they appeared. Each of those books fueled her passion to learn more about the person, subject matter, or time in history. Unlike many people who open a book in bed before it’s time to sleep, Steph prefers to read while sitting in a chair with a cup of coffee by her side. She doesn’t race through a book, as she wants to savor the experience.

Now Steph is 70 and she never did get to college. But she has only four books left to read from the list. She expects to complete them sometime in 2023.

In Madame Curie, the author, Eve Curie, writes, “Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.” The way Steph sees it, Mrs. Clark felt it was her particular duty to help young students. She wishes she could thank Mrs. Clarks and share with her how reading the works on her list has changed her life. “It was never just a list I got from some teacher in school. It’s always been Mrs. Clark’s Book List,” says Steph.