1 . I was always a reader. As a kid, I walked to the library several times a week and _________up late reading with a flashlight. I checked out so many books and returned them so _________ that the librarian once roared, “Don’t take home so many books _________ you’re not going to read them all.”

“But I did read them all,” I said.

I was an English major at university and went on to get a masters in literature When I created my online dating _________, I made my screen name(网名) – “missbibiliophile59595. Filling out the “favorite books” section, I let my taste in literature _________ for me: One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Moveable Feast, White Teeth, How to Read the Air.

_________, I realized it had been more than two years since I had read most of those _________. I had stopped reading gradually. I tried to _________my bookish persona (人设) .I joined book clubs that I never attended. I requested a library book everyone was reading, only to return it _________.

I still __________ the idea of reading. __________ I found a bookstore, I would linger__________   the shelves for hours as if __________ up with old friends, picking out books I had read and buying new ones. But it was __________ to me: I was becoming a person I did not know.

David was my first online __________. His profile (简介) said he liked to read, so I asked him about his last book. His face __________ and his fingers danced. David read much more than I did, about a book or two a week. We seemed a (n) __________ couple: me, a five-foot-three black woman__________   to a Caribbean mother, and him, a six foot-four white guy from Ohio. But as we got to know each other, our __________ faith and mutual love of books __________ our gaps.

2 . When young, I read only comic books. Novels seemed to be too_______! For me, a comic book was a rollercoaster ride_______ a novel was five hours in rush hour traffic.

My mother would complain, which totally_______ my comic book reading experience. One summer, she even _______me: “Read at least one novel this summer, or we’re not going to go on our camping trip.” What could I do? I had been looking forward to that_______ for months!

My mother took me down to the local _______, where the librarian _________The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I unwillingly_______ the book.

When we got home, I cracked the book open and started reading. I _______ I’d read the first few pages then skip to the end because I knew my mother would ________ me about it. Imagine my ________ when my mother called me to dinner and I was halfway through the book! ________ a comic book was a rollercoaster ride, the novel was all the rides at Disney world rolled into one!

I ________ reading the entire Chronicles of Narnia series that summer, which I consider the________ of my great friendship with books. Now I read one book a week, and sometimes my wife________ that I read too much.

4 . One day when I was 12, my mother ordered me to walk to the public library and borrow at least one book for the summer. This was one more weapon for her to ________ my strange problem — ________ to read.

In the library, I sat down on the floor and pulled a few books off the shelf________ . The beagle (比格猎犬) on the book’s cover   ________   my eye. The first and only animal companion I ever had as a child was a beagle.   ________, one morning, he was given ________ to someone who had the space and money to care for him. I never ________ my beagle.

The beagle on the cover looked   ________ to my dog. My eyes ran across the ________, “Amos, the Beagle with a Plan.”   ________, I had read the title. Without opening the book, I   ________   it from the library for the summer.

I started to read about Amos very slowly and with ________ . It was about a dog who, like mine, had been   ________ from his family and found his way back home. That dog was my dog, and I was the little boy in the book. At the end of the story, my mind continued the final scene of   ________ until my own lost dog and I were, in my mind, running together.

My mother’s call returned me to the   ________   world. I suddenly ________ something: I had read a book and loved it. Everyone knew I couldn’t read, but I had read it! Books were ________ , and I was going to read them.

I ________ told my mother about my miraculous (奇迹般的) experience that summer, but she saw a slow but remarkable ________ in my classroom performance during the next year. Years later, she was   ________ that her son had read thousands of books, was awarded a PhD in literature and authored his own books, articles, poetry and fiction.

7 . I had a bad habit of skipping to the last pages of a book. I just wanted to see how it ended ______ I was still in the middle of it. This habit ______ first my mom, then my friends, and ______ even my own daughter. Often my ______ wouldn’t be limited just to the books I read but also to what others were ______ as well. Then one day my daughter told me in anger, “Dad, please just read a book one ______ at a time like everyone else!”

At times I didn’t ______ this bad habit to just books either. I also tried to skip ahead in my own life and ______ out what to do months and even years from now ______ enjoy each day at present. Although I knew that the ______ of my life wasn’t done yet and that I had many pages ______ to go. I still couldn’t control my burning desire to write the ______ of it half-way through. Time and again, I would ______ jump ahead and try to solve every potential problem before it happened. Life, ______, doesn’t work like that. It loves to ______ us, and you never know what new problems, changes or opportunities each new day will ______.

Recently when I found myself living in the ______ again, I felt a voice that gently told me I needed to “live one day at a time.” When I heard those words, I ______, turned the book of my life back to the ______ page, and thanked God for today.

Each of us has to ______ the book of life line by line, moment by moment and trust that our story will be brought to its perfect end.

8 . Like many parents, I enjoyed reading a bedtime story to my two sons each night before they went to bed. After the story was over, we would turn off the lights, and talked until they fell _________

One night after the lights were off, my 3-year-old son, Will, _________ me to tell them a story_________ by myself, not one from a book. So I _________ told him a story about the first thing that came into my _________. But to my surprise, he _________ it so much that he asked me to do that the next night.

Thus a story-telling tradition was _________ in our family. Ever since that night, they seemed not to be able to sleep without hearing one of my _________ stories. Of all the things I do for my _________ ,my storytelling is what they love most. It has created a special __________ between us. And they find that their day isn’t __________ without one of my stories, and so do I.

When I see how __________ my storytelling is in their lives, I come to realize how much our television and video-oriented (以视频为导向的) society has __________in terms of the personal connections that storytelling brings. Before the __________ of television, computers and smartphones, a family’s __________was built around storytelling. This oral (口述的) tradition was __________ from generation to generation, and many of the stories we have today originated from this tradition until someone finally __________them down.

Storytelling is used as a creative way to __________ for me. During the storytelling, I forget about the pressure of the day and enjoy the __________ time I can spend with my children. I hope that other parents can gain __________ from storytelling, too.

10 . The books in David’s schoolbag felt like bricks as he ran down the street. What he wanted to do was play basketball with Eric,_________ his mother told him he would have to return his sister’s books to the library first.

He went into the building; only a few minutes _________ closing time. He put the books into the return box. And after a brief _________ in the toilet, he would be on his way to the playground to _________ Eric.

David stepped out of the toilet and stopped in _________ — the library lights were off. The place was _________. The doors had been shut. They _________ be opened from the inside: he was trapped — in a library!

He tried to _________ a telephone call but was unable to _________. As the sun began to set, he searched for a light and found it.

__________ he could see. David wrote on a piece of paper: “__________! I’m TRAPPED inside!” and stuck it to the glass door. Surely, someone passing by would see it.

He was surprised to discover that this place was not so unpleasant, __________. Rows and rows of shelves held books, videos and music. He saw a book about Michael Jordan and took it off the shelf. He settled into a chair and started to __________.

He knew he had to__________, but now, that didn’t seem to be such a __________ thing.