1 . 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.

2 . Seven-year-old Maggie Kuznia loves books, but she seems to love sharing the stories she reads even more. Qnce or twice a week, the little girl puts a few books in her backpack and gets ready to _______ the elderly at Good Samaritan Society.

Maggie’s mom, Tiffany Kuznia, works as the activity director at the retirement facility and often brings her daughter with her to _______. One day, as little Maggie was packing her bag, Tiffany Kuznia _______ her to bring her toys. Maggie quickly replied that she had _______ plans for the day. “I’m going to bring books and I’m going to read to the residents.” she _______.

With time, Maggie has become so beloved among the residents that she even has “_______” she reads to every week. She often visits each one for over an hour with her mom regularly checking in on her to make sure she isn’t overstaying her _______. Much to Maggie’s _______, the residents are more than happy to have her around for extended periods of time. The _______ usually leads to coloring books and doing puzzles with her elderly friends, who ________ Maggie a granddaughter of their own.

Maggie hopes to inspire other kids of her age to read to the elderly. ________ polishing her reading abilities and having a group of devoted ________, her senior friends are always ready to help her when she trips up on a ________ word. As for the residents, Maggie seems to ________ their day. “I think the intergenerational part is so good,” Patti Griggs, a resident Maggie has befriended, said. “Everybody likes to have the ________ of another person and be special to them.”

3 . 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 . With over 125,000 followers, 34-year-old Oliver James is a star in the Book Tok community. And it all started with a simple_________: Learn to read.

For most of the kids, school is a place where they can develop a relationship with learning in a_________ environment. For James, the opposite. _________ with learning and behavior. Disabilities made him in_________ education. “The special education system at the time was a lot more_________ on behavioral than educating,” he said.

Reading_________ carried over into James’ adulthood and it significantly _________ his employment opportunities and affected his self-esteem (自信). However, when he and his wife decided_________ to their family of three, James became determined to change things.

Starting his journey with a book of inspirational quotes gifted by his wife, James began reading bits out loud and _________ to TikTok. Being a motivational speaker, he would often combine his interests with his heartfelt honesty and personality. __________ will often send James more books to read in hopes for his book reviews.

But perhaps the biggest __________ has been the way reading has __________ James’ relationship with his son. In an interview, he shared that they’ve not only__________ over books but reading has proven to be a great __________ for mental health, which has helped James become a better parent. James’ new goal is to read 100 new titles by 2024 —__________ for any bookworm in this day and age.

5 . I grew up in libraries, or at least it feels that way. I was ________ in small town of Cleveland, just a few ________ from the public library. I went there several times a week with my mother. She and I would walk in together, but ________ we passed through the door, we each headed to our ________ section. The library might have been the first place I was ever given ________.

Even when I was maybe four or five years old, I was ________ to head off on my own. Then, after a while, my mother and I would reunite at the checkout counter with our ________. Together we’d ________ as the librarian pulled out the date card and stamped it with the checkout machine.

When I was older, I usually walked to the library by myself, ________ back as many books as I could. Sometimes, I did go with my mother, and the trip would be as happy as it had been when I was ________. When I ________ my mother these days, since she died two years ago, I like to ________ us in the car together, going for one more impressive trip to our library.

My parents valued books. They believed that you read a book for the ________ of reading it. You didn’t read it in order to have a(n) ________ that had to be housed and looked after forever. The reading of the book was a journey. There was no need for ________.

6 . I was thrilled when I was pregnant. However, I quickly ______ that the hardest part of pregnancy wasn’t tiredness or swelling but, for me, listening to person after person tell me once the baby was born, I would never read a book again, which ______ me greatly.

I’m a writer and more of a reader. Books are the ______ of my life. There are many things I can ______ give up for the ______ of motherhood, but reading isn’t one of them.

My husband ______ me, “It’s OK to do whatever you want to do. Those who quit reading after they had kids never made reading a top ______ .” Indeed, he was right.

My newborn wouldn’t sleep unless she was held. But there was a great ______ in rocking a baby who’s nursing or napping in your arms: lots of time to______ . My e-reader then became my best friend as I could hold it with one hand and download library books when I was ______ in the house. I read over 100 books in my daughter’s first year and I ______ reading with getting me through those difficult early months.

Now we’re through the unstable and unrest preschool years, and she often said, “Mama, please read me a story. It’s the only way I can ______ . ” As a mother, I’m amazed how ______ she is to know so early how to care for herself.

Should my daughter one day ______ to have a child herself, I won’t tell her that she’ll never read again. ______ I’ll remind her that people do what they want to do, and good moms take care of themselves.

8 . Steph Clemence always intended to go to college. ________ when her father died in a car accident, leaving her mother to support three daughters on a ________ income, paying for college became out of the question.

________ going to college, Steph found a job, and tried to________ what to do with a life so different from her plan. The ________came from two pages from her English teacher, Dorothy Clark. One afternoon she walked into the classroom carrying a stack of papers titled “Mrs. Clark’s Book List.” It wasn’t homework, the teacher announced, but it could be a road ________ .“Some of you might not go on to higher education,“ Mrs. Clark said, “but you can ________ to learn.”

“I was determined to ________ myself,” Steph says. She studied the ________ and so it began. Each of those books sparked her ________ to learn more. “Reading books is like a treasure hunt,” says Steph. “What am I going to ________ ? How will my heart change?” That made her look for other books that weren’t on the list, hoping to ________ her knowledge.

When the original list ________, she typed up a new copy. And then another. Over the years, the family moved around a lot. Through it all, the reading list was a ________ in Steph’s life, traveling with her even on vacations. Now Steph is 70, and she never did get to college. But she has only four books ________ to read from the list. She expects to complete them sometime in 2023.

9 . There is a saying that “It takes a village to raise a kid”. There’s no better _________ than Hobart, New York, with its eight used bookstores. Not _________ for a community of 351. Gathered on Main Street, the shops form a _________ literary path in the northern Catskills.

Retired piano teacher Don Dales moved and _________ there in 1999. He bought empty storefronts and offered merchants a year of free _________ . In 2001, Bill Adams and his wife, Diana drove through the town. They needed somewhere to _________ their hundreds of books. That summer, they opened Adams’ Antiquarian Books, showcasing classics and _________ , collectable first editions. Their first book sold was on the Celts. “We didn’t have another sale for months,” Diana recalls.

Don, meanwhile, was doing no better. In _________ with Bill and Diana, he worried that he couldn’t rent his buildings. The couple _________ Hay-on-Wye, a village in Wales famous for its 19 bookshops. Don, inspired, became a __________. He ran Quarry Books,__________ mysteries and science fiction.

Liberty Rock Books, named for a Revolutionary War lookout,__________ in 2013. Owners John and James Mahoney possessed thousands of __________, including religious texts. For transportation or sports titles, try More Good Books. History fans love New York Books & Ephemera, which also __________ souvenirs relating to the Empire State Building.

“Everyone has a specialty,” Diana says. “But we work together. Booksellers have keys to each other’s shops, and have made Hobart a travel __________. No wonder people call Hobart the village that books built.”