2 . We all wish we had our very own libraries at home. They’re a great way to keep what you love reading best organized in one place. Technology has taken over our lives and everything seems to be accessible _______. The sad part about online books is that the realness of holding one in your hands is lost. It may be _______ to those who often travel, but there’s nothing like printed books in libraries that you can leaf through, as opposed to clicking through.

Unlike the Internet, printed books are much more _______ than any other sources. Rarely will you find a list of references mentioned at the end of the article section on the web. Printed books are _______ carefully before they’re published so that the facts mentioned in non-fiction books are all true and necessary. Reference pages at the end of these books are also mentioned in some works that require such a section.

Unlike electronic devices that can have problems such as the loss of _______ it stores, printed books have a way of lasting for years to come if _______ with care. They can be collected as valuable books that you’d like to have in their _______ form, as well as be passed on to others who’d like to read them as well. It’s great when you have something like a book to hold on to (留存) and read, while an online book _______ that close and constant companionship.

_______, you can’t expect kids to hold up an iPad under the sheets late at night. Reading ________ books ensures that kids have access to reading without being spoiled into buying a(n) ________ product that can distract (分心) them from actual reading. Kids love picture books and the images that come with them, which is great for present authors who still ________books that are intended for kids.

Libraries are a great place that dates back to a time when ________ was non-existent and was an unbelievable idea to men back in that period. Today the ________ of libraries still exists, with many people going to them for the love of books. It is important for children to start off by reading the real thing before ________ what other media can offer. Anyway, never forget what first got you started.

4 . You may know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” It _________ the idea behind the Living Library project. Like _________ library, a Living Liberty offers readers books, except that these “books” can _________ to you. But these living books are not like anything from a(n) _________ movie — they are people like you and me.

The Living Library project was started in 2000 by a group of young people in Denmark. They wanted to reduce _________ and encourage understanding between people, and they had the idea of bringing together some very different people to communicate _________. These living books were from different cultural backgrounds, nations, educational levels, religions and _________.

Reading living books is very _________: Each book can talk with readers face to face, and sometimes a small group of readers can read one book together. The book and the reader(s) _________ and share different thoughts, ideas, lifestyles and so on.

The project began to gain in __________ in other parts of the world and was introduced to China in 2009. This past April, a wave of Living Library events was held in more than 20 Chinese cities. In Guangzhou, for example, 50 living books were presented to 200 readers.

The event was divided into four rounds; each lasted 40 minutes. In each round, __________ eight readers would read one book together. One of the living books, Tang, suffered from depression. She talked about her experience of fighting depression and also pointed out a problem: People’s __________ about mental illnesses was preventing many patients from getting treatment in time.

In Living Library events like this one, it is not one person __________ another, but someone introducing others to a different idea or way of life. Everyone can raise questions and everyone is __________.

“Everyone is a book,” said Liu Qiongxiong, the organizer of the event in Guangzhou. “By reading others we can better understand each other and__________.”

The good news is that today’s teenagers are greedy readers and productive writers. The bad news is that what they are reading and writing are text messages.

It’s an unmissable trend. Even if you don’t have teenage kids, you’ll still see other people’s offspring wandering around, their eyes averted, tapping away, totally     1     of their surroundings. Take a group of teenagers to see the eight wonders of the world. Chances are that they’ll     2     be texting all the way, even if it means missing all those awe-inspiring moments. Show a teenager Jan Vermeer’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring. You might get a quick glance before a buzz     3     the arrival of the latest SMS.

Now before I am     4     of throwing stones in a glass house, let me confess. I probably send about 50 texts a day, and I receive what seem like 200. But there is difference, I also read books. It’s a quaint old habit I picked up as a kid, in the days before cellphones began     5     in the palms of the young.

According to a survey carried about in 2019, half of today’s teenagers don’t read books except when they’re made to. What is more     6     to me as a high school teacher is the fact that almost two-thirds of high school freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week. Nearly half of seniors don’t read for pleasure at all.

Why does this matter? Because, to some extent, this texting craze can and will produce a large number of cultural    7     who are cut off from the civilization of their ancestors if we don’t take some necessary measures.

So how can we encourage our teenagers to read books? Whether in the classroom or at home, one of the best ways to promote reading is by reading together. Another way to encourage reading is to help teenagers set a goal to read a certain number of books or read books from a certain genre. This will help them stay focused and     8     to read. For instance, if your child loves playing football, read the storybook related to football. Or if your child loves going on walks, take along some picture books to read along the way. By making reading more     9     and fun, we can foster a love of reading in them.

But don’t expect children to fall in love with reading     10    . When it comes to reading, trust the process.

6 . Literature opens up a new world for the reader. Whenever I feel upset by anything or stressed out about the little or big things in life, going back to my books gives me an escape from the harsh reality I am surrounded with.

For me, English Literature isn’t just reading extensively or collecting knowledge from various sources and assembling them, it is so much more. Since my childhood, I have been fascinated by how the authors, poets, and, more importantly, playwrights convey passion and sentiments. I personally find it so difficult to convey my feelings and emotions in a set of words, but it continues to fascinate me as to how they accomplish to cede their sentiments almost perfectly in a string of words. For example: “Lines along my face, they dull my eyes, yet keep on dying, because I love to live.” She says that by facing the challenges and pain presented by life to her, there are now lines of resignation and sadness on her face. The sufferings given by life are such that her eyes have lost their light and have become dull. Yet the wonders of life give her the power to continue.

What I like the most about literature is that we are shaken out from our comfort zone when we read literary masterpieces. A lot of books may not glorify the protagonists but give an insight into why a particular character behaved in a certain manner.

Being an ardent lover of history, I have always been intrigued by the evolution of English literature over the ages. Take the books by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen for example, you can clearly see they have always shown the other side of the world, the sufferings experienced by the working class. Even their comedies do not feel like comedies at all. However, after the Victorian era ended and Modernism started, the modern literature’s influence (I believe) was WW1 and WW2. When you read “Gone with the Wind” and read about people like Ashley Wilkes, you begin to question the purpose of fighting wars. They have always written of times which transcend their own. They have shown rebellions of their ardors averse to the understandings of the society. These rebellions against the society’s established dogmas have been one of the main themes of the literature of those times. But there is a clear contrast between the Victorian literature and the modern literature. All of the writers always took on the moral code, character and conscience. The evolution of literature is totally unique in its own way.

English Literature has opened my mind towards intellectual activities and has helped to define my feelings and emotions with beautifully weaved words.

8 . Reading involves looking at illustrative symbols and expressing mentally the sounds and ideas they represent. Concepts of reading have changed _______ over the centuries. During the 1950’s and 1960’s especially, increased attention has been devoted to _______ the reading process. Although experts agree that reading _______ a complex organization of higher mental _______, they disagree about the exact nature of the process. Some experts, who regard language primarily as a code using symbols to represent sounds, _______ reading as simply the decoding (解码) of symbols into the sounds they stand for.

These authorities _______ that meaning, being concerned with thinking, must be taught independently of the decoding process. Others maintain that reading is inexplainably related to thinking, and that a child who pronounces sounds without _______ their meaning is not truly reading. The reader, _______ some, is not just a person with a theoretical ability to read but one who _______ reads.

Many adults, although they have the ability to read, have never read a book in its ________. By some experts they would not be ________ as readers. Clearly, the philosophy, objectives, methods and materials of reading will depend on the definition one uses. By the most ________ and satisfactory definition, reading is the ability to ________ the sound-symbols code of the language, to interpret meaning for various ________, at various rates, and at various levels of difficulty, and to do so widely and enthusiastically. ________, reading is the interpretation of ideas through the use of symbols representing sounds and ideas.