1 . Short stories deserve popularity again. In recent years, there have been critically excellent collections of American writers such as Lydia Davis and Junot Diaz. But few other manage to _________ the bestseller lists, and they are too often _________ by novels. _________ their golden days in the early 20t century, short stories are mostly viewed as trials or experiments before an author works hard with the real thing.

John Burnside, a Scottish poet and novelists, _________, this fixed idea in his latest collection, Something Like Happy. Over 13 stories, Mr. Burnside shows the greatness of the concise _________. His stories take place mostly in Scotland, in flats “high up on the third floor of an apartment block in the middle of Dundee” or in the back room of a hardware shop, where men drink “sweet, milky coffee” _________ waiting for the results of races. His men carry knives; his women are often _________ housewives who drink, take up bell-ringing in their local church _________ a way of filling in time.

Happiness is the subject that _________ the collection together. In other hands, this could become emotional. __________ Mr. Burnside, with only a few __________, never allows that to happen. Instead, happiness __________ stays from these figures; so much so that they have almost stopped to __________ it. Rooted in the bleaker aspects of Scotland’s sceneries, it is something that his __________ constantly search for, in these concise and poetic tales—but __________ to find.

2 . Not long ago, Linda was sitting by a hospital bed, feeling anxious. Beside her lay her 88-year-old father. His heart was ________ and he needed an operation.

What ________ her almost as much as his health was the fact that all day the two of them had engaged in nothing but ________ small talks. She and her father had always had good ________, but now all he talked about was the awful hospital food and the ________ outcomes of his illness. His once wide-ranging interests seemed to have ________ to the size of the room.

That day in the hospital, Linda’s eye fell on the ________ that people had brought as gifts and left on the table. Her father had always been a passionate reader, but lately he didn’t have the ________ or focus. She ________ a book, and started to read it out loud.

It ________ changed the mood and atmosphere. It was a ________ and a pleasure for both of them. Reading gave the daughter a way to connect with her father and help him in a situation that was ________ out of her hands. ________ allowed the father to travel on the sound of his daughter’s voice, up and out of the bed and back into the world of mature, intelligent engagement, where he ________ himself again.

In fact, almost any kind of reading to another person can be ________ to both parties, providing a joyful shared experience.

3 . At Bookmark, we want every single child to read. Many children in the average class in the UK are not _________ to read well when they leave primary school. We need more reading _________ to help us change this. With Bookmark, you can truly make a ________ to the futures of primary school children. One Bookmark volunteer has _________ her story.

Claire began reading with Zach in 2019 at a local school. Her ________ as a Bookmark volunteer taught her more than she expected. During their sessions, Claire _________ Zach to see reading as fun. _________, he asked Claire why anyone would read in their spare time. Seeing this as an opportunity, she ________ to him that there are books out there on all his favorite hobbies.

As their sessions continued, Claire noticed a _________. When packing up in their final session, Zach __________ a book. It was a more advanced ________ than those he’d been reading, but he __________ said that he was happy and confident to give it a go at home. At that moment, Claire started to _________ her impact as a Bookmark volunteer.

Enjoying reading is a powerful tool for a primary school child. Reading for _________ provides a route into learning and opens many opportunities. For young readers, this joy __________ confidence both in the classroom and at home.

4 . I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria.I was a(n) _________reader, and what I read were British and American children’s books.I began to write when I was seven.I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my _________ were white and blue-eyed. They played in the snow. They ate apples, and they talked a lot about the _________，how lovely it was that the sun had _________.

What this demonstrates is how _________we can be influenced by what we read, particularly as children. Because all I had read were foreign books, I had become _________ that books had to have _________ in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.

Things _________ when I discovered African books. There weren’t many of them available, and they weren’t quite as easy to _________ as the foreign books.

But __________ writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye I went through a mental __________in my view of literature.I __________ that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate,could also __________ in literature. I started to write about things I recognized. What the __________ of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a __________ story of what books are.

6 . Now that we have briefly explored the history of the short story and heard from a few of its creators, let us consider the role of the reader. Readers are not empty vessels that wait, _______ raised, to receive a teacher’s or a critic’s interpretation. They bring their unique life experiences to the story. With these_______ , the best readers also bring their attention, their reading skills, and most importantly, their_______ to a reading of a story.

My students always_______ me to discuss, analyze, interpret, and evaluate the stories we read without destroying the excitement of being beamed up into another world. For years I _______with one response after the other to this challenge. Then one day I read an article by a botanist who had explored the beauty of flowers by x-raying them. His illustrations showed the rose and the lily in their_______ beauty, and his x-rays_______the wonders of their construction. I brought the article to class, where we discussed the benefits of examining the internal structure of flowers, relationships, current events, and short stories.

A short story, _______ , is not a fossil to admire. Readers must ask questions, guess at the answers,_______what will happen next, then read to discover. They and the author form a partnership that brings the story to life. Awareness of this partnership keeps the original excitement alive through discussion, analysis, interpretation, and ________. Literary explorations allow the reader to admire the authors’________ as well as their artistry. In fact, original appreciation may be enhanced by this x-ray vision. The final step is to appreciate once again the story________— to put the pieces back together.

Now it is your turn. Form a partnership with your author. During your________in reading, enter into a dialogue with the published scholars featured in Short Stories for Students. Through this________with experts you will revise, enrich, or________your original observations and interpretations.

During this adventure, I hope you will feel the same as the listeners that surround the neck of my Pueblo storyteller.

7 . To beat the blues of staying at home all day, I _______ an ‘online book exchange’ on account of my friends. Details were _______ to understand, and I spent hours trying to make it clear.

I had my doubts, though. For one, it involved _______ a copy of your favorite book to a complete stranger, and then waiting for a series of people to _______ the chain, till you received some books _______, from complete strangers. A natural pessimist I am, I _______ if I would receive any books. But _______, I sent a copy of my favorite, Jeffrey Arche’s The Eleventh Commandment, to a stranger. Days later, I was _______ when the first book arrived! And soon followed another 10 books that I had never in my wildest dreams imagined I would receive. Over the next two weeks, books kept _______, ranging from Dr Abdul Kalam’s autobiography (自传) to Charlotte Jane Eyre and a bestselling Japanese thriller. I even ________ my afternoon nap (午觉), ready to open the door ________ another book was delivered.

There is something intimate (亲密的) about exchanging books with strangers. By ________ a book with someone, I believe we end up sharing a part of our soul with them.

The posting about the book exchange on social media brought me ________ to many old friends, with whom I had lost touch due to the ________ schedules we all had before COVID-19 ________ our plans. It fired long discussions about trying out wine in Vietnam.

9 . Three mornings a week, Iona walks six blocks from Eastern High School to Payne Elementary School. She ________ at the front desk just after 8: 30 a. m. and makes her way to a ________ , where she’ll be teaching second-and third-graders who are full of energy after the school day.

Iona, a senior at Eastern High, ________ this work back in the ninth grade. It’s run by Reach, a Washington D. C. nonprofit, which trains high school ________ like her to be reading tutors (教师) for elementary school students. It’s a tutoring program that works in two ________ . It’s serving a(n) ________ need in the city: Two-thirds of students in D. C. public schools can’t ________ and write at grade level when they start high school. Reach ________ these older students to become ________ readers by giving them the tools to teach younger kids.

Tutoring programs that ________ younger and older students are ________ . But most rely on ________ students. Reach turns the ________ on its head: Most of the teenage tutors start the ________ reading between the fourth-and sixth-grade level... The tutors ________ training in literacy (读写能力) instruction and they’re ________ as role models. With Reach, teens are given the ________ of helping a younger student. That’s a big ________ for them.

Iona says she ________ reading a lot more than she did when she started almost four years ago. She hasn’t decided on her future plans, but she does ________ one thing: She wants to work with kids.