1 . Jennifer’s mother, a librarian, read to her three children every day. She got them ________ to books. When Jennifer had the ________ to be an elementary school teacher in Danville, Virginia, she had the ________ that her students loved reading just as she had. But early on, she realized that some kids were left with limited ________ to books.

“It’s ________ to teachers of young children at the end of the first day of school which kids are ________ to or are not,” she said. To Jennifer, the ________ was simple: give kids books. In 2017, as part of an event called Engage Danville she ________ 900 used children’s books over three days. Most people would be ________ with that.

“Anybody could do that,” she said. “I wanted to do something to ________ my faith.” So she raised the goal ________ by setting a new goal for herself: give away one million books. It sounds like a number beyond her ________ but she got to work, first by ________ friends to donate books or money to buy books. Before long, as news of Jennifer’s project ________ strangers started leaving books by her front door. As the books come in, Jennifer gives them to local schools free of charge, and also ________ books to little free libraries around the city of 41, 000. She also ________a book club in the local prison.

In the four years she’s been doing all this. The Book Lady, as Jennifer has come to be ________ has given away more than 78, 000 books! And she has no ________ to slow down. It’s too important for kids with few ________

“Reading can take you ________” she said. “If you can read, you can learn almost anything.”

2 . For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In ______ a job or advancing in one, the ability to read and comprehend ______ can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are ______ readers. Most of us develop poor reading ______ at an early age, and never get over them. The main deficiency ______ in the actual stuff of language itself-words. Taken individually, words have ______ meaning until they are strung together into phrased, sentences and paragraphs. ______ however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He laboriously reads one word at a time, often regressing to reread words or passages. Regression, the tendency to look back over ______ you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which ______ down the speed of reading is vocalization—sounding each word either orally or mentally as one reads.

To overcome these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an ______ , which moves a bar(or curtain)down the page at a predetermined speed. The bar is set at a slightly faster rate ______ the reader finds comfortable in order to “stretch” him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast, ______ word-by-word reading, regression and vocalization practically impossible. At first ______ is sacrificed for speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster, but your comprehension will improve. Many people have found their reading skill drastically improved after some training. ______ Charlce Au. a business manager, for instance, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute ______ the training, now it is an excellent 1,378 words a minute. He is delighted that how he can get through a lot more reading material in a short period of time.

4 . 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.

5 . 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.

6 . 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.

10 . 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.