1 . 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.

4 . The word “hobby” is an interesting _________. People usually do what they like in their own _________ time. That is “hobby”. Many people have their own _________.They keep pets, collect coins or travel a lot. They think hobbies can bring them happiness and they can help people _________ after their daily work. Almost everyone has many hobbies. Hobbies are good for our life. Hobbies can _________ us friendship and knowledge. Everyone should have hobbies. Everyone has _________ hobbies. Some people like going hiking. Some people like watching TV. Tom, what is my hobby? Right! I like _________ books. When I am free, I like reading all kinds of books. I think doing some reading is a good _________ as well as a nice hobby. Reading books can bring me _________. I can learn a lot about sports, news, stories and so on. I think we can make friends ______________ books. Reading books is good for our ______________. It can’t help us know more about our ______________. But some books are bad for us, so we should read good books. If you don‘t like reading, you will be out of ______________. Maybe many people ______________ my interests. Reading books can make us cleverer. Books are our best ______________. I hope more and more people will read books every day.

5 . I was born in India. My dad was a busy doctor, but the best thing he did was to______the Reader’s Digest. He didn’t read_____but the Digest and the Illustrated Weekly of India, because he said they were the only stylish magazines. We looked forward to the RD monthly, simply because we loved them. ______, the postman didn’t at all like the day he brought it. My siblings and I used to ______ him by pulling it from his hand, ______the packing and throwing that back in his bag.

We used to fight for the magazine so much that he nearly fell off his______once!

Realizing what a group of ______youngsters he had to encounter, he soon learned his lesson and always got off his bike______he rang the doorbell, especially on the day the RD had to be______!

It was only when I was 17 that I fully understood the ______ pages. I had an irritating habit of laughing out loud, which I did, in the______places. Once I was travelling to London with my parents. Lost in the jokes from Reader’s Digest, I burst out laughing. People were staring at me in ____ ; my parents were embarrassed, but I was____of all that, and just enjoyed reading my Digest.

______, I started reading all the articles in the RD, and I must say I truly enjoyed reading the magazine from cover to cover. I am now 65 years old. Reader ‘s Digest has ______over the years, but I have not stopped reading. I even got my own subscription.

6 . There are always some persons in your life who touch your soft heart with kindness.

As a little girl, my favorite thing was _______. And when I thought about _______ I wanted to be when I grew up, I figured I’d be a librarian, just because the two librarians changed my life.

At that time, the town library limited the number of books a person borrowed _______ two once a week. I _______ the books in just three days. So to read more, I was _______ about what books to choose. The librarian, Mrs. Tonne, was a warm person. Every time I went into the library, she greeted me, _______. When learning about my trouble, she often _______ some better books. Thanks to her help, I _______ a lot from these books.

Gradually, I developed an interest in writing, _______ poems. When I was in fourth grade, our school librarian, Mrs. Ketelsen, encouraged me to write more. When my poem was not accepted, she ________ me with comfortable words. Once she helped ________ some poems I’d written about dinosaurs to Highlights magazine. It was my first published writing!

Later, at the University of Iowa, ________ I majored in journalism, my dream was different. I realized that I was shy about interviewing people, which made me ________. When I recalled Mrs. Tonne and Mrs. Ketelsen, I made a decision without ________ to be devoted to writing. And now I am an editor at Reader’s Digest.

Whenever I think of the help from them, how ________ I am. It is their kindness that makes me what I am.

7 . I was an obsessive (痴迷的) lover of books, who was ______ at two and polishing off chapter books by kindergarten. In grammar school I worked my way through the library, gradually getting less picky as the options ______. However, what I wanted to read was science fiction. It was ______ to find. A sixth-grade teacher lent me a copy of Watership Down, a(n) ______ experience.

I am sick. My symptoms (症状) are odd, and no one really knows what my ______ is. I grew weaker and more isolated, but I got a ride to the library once a week and ______ all the novels I could carry. I kept reading ______ my disability.

Later, I met a technical nonfiction writer, who explained to me how to make a living ______ for magazines. At last, something I could ______! I subscribed to Writer’s Digest but wrote a fantasy novel instead.

After ______ that first novel, I made writer friends online. I thought my life ______ at last. Here was a career path where all my reading would ______ and where my disability wouldn’t shut me out. I wrote two science fiction novels, which later got published.

It turns out that in writing science fiction being unique can be a ______, practice eventually works, and persistence (坚持不懈) is really what matters. Without ______, I wouldn’t have had anything to aspire to, and I would never have ______ something I could share with the world.

9 . Myrtle is a small sleepy town in Missouri. There’s no bank or restaurant here, but a small stone_______right next to the state highway. Half of it is a post office. The other half is a one-room_______.Rachel Luster took over this library four months ago with the_______of connecting the community to the outside world and creating a _______center for the kids.

Her first task was_______the books she felt every library must have: The Odyssey. “I looked and looked. But we didn’t have. No library in our system had one,” Luster said. So she started to use social media to_______money from people around the state and has already _______about 1, 000 new books to the library.

“While the Myrtle library_______taxpayer money, it gets only $200a month for books and supplies,” she explained. “But the library is a _______for the community because many people here do not have ________to the Internet at home and the library is the only place that people can connect to the outside world. I want to bring a sense of ________to the community.”

Luster’s library is open only three days a week. One of her ________visitors is 10-year-old Blake Brooks.

“Before________this library, my favorite activity was watching TV,” he said. “Now, as soon as I step off the school bus, I come here to________.I like to________.I’m in the books I read.”

10 . 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.