1 . Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler

Saint Maybe is an example of how one small mistake can result in tragedy (悲剧) for a family with lives changed forever. The true strength of the novel lies in the author’s ability to write with sincerity and understanding. I’ve read this book many times over and always find it inspirational when it comes to writing my own novels about the complexities of family life.

— Eric James

Silly Verse For Kids by Spike Milligan

This book is so tiny and thin, but I loved all these funny poems inside-and it made me want to write rhymes. After reading this, I started writing my own poetry. I like including silly poems and lyrics in my books, which is definitely down to the influence of this book. It’s a book that you would read as a kid and it would really stimulate your imagination.

— Liz Pichon

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

A book read at my father’s knee and one that inspired my imagination and shaped my writing life. My desire to fall down a rabbit hole that might take me to Wonderland surpassed (胜过) my other childhood wishes. Wonderland with its Cheshire Cat and never-ending tea parties, which were reflected in a life-long love of cats and cakes, suited me best.

— Menna van Praag

Bambi by Felix Salten

My mum read this to me before I could read, and later I read it to myself again and again. In the Suffolk countryside where I grew up, I would often spot deer in the fields. This book made me stop and study the animal tracks on the ground and made me think about the world around me in a different way, setting me on the path to being a writer.

— Polly Crosby

1. What is the advantage of Saint Maybe?

A．The content of the book.	B．The example in this novel.
C．The complexities of life.	D．The author’s writing abilities.

2. Which book would you choose if you want to read poems?

A．Saint Maybe

B．Silly Verse For Kids

C．Alice in Wonderland

D．Bambi

3. What do the four books have in common?

A．They influence the four readers greatly.	B．They are mainly recommended for kids.
C．They can stimulate readers’ imagination.	D．They allow readers to see the world differently.

2 . Every year, Barnes & Noble picks the 10 best books of the year, covering all genres and age groups. If you’re looking for an amazing book to grab before the end of 2021, here are some of the best books of the year.

Cloud Cuckoo Land

This novel is both a historical and futuristic science fiction story that connects five characters across hundreds of years through their relationship to a book: “Cloud Cuckoo Land.” The book they find is about a shepherd named Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird, so he can live a carefree life forever. As each character finds this book, from a l5th century kid to a young teen on a futuristic interstellar ship, their stories meet in this complex yet fascinating read.

Crying in H Mart

When Michelle Zauner was 25, her mother s cancer changed her life forever and forced her to accept her Korean American identity in a desperate attempt to stay connected to her mother. As a talented musician, Michelle had previously been divorced from her cultural roots, but quickly turned to food to keep her mother's memory alive in this powerful and heartbreaking memoir.

Pony

It is a historical, middle-grade adventure novel intended for adolescents. It talks about a 12-year-old boy named Silas who is woken in the middle of the night to see his father being taken away by three horsemen. With only his horse named Pony by his side, Silas sets off on a life-changing mission to find his father.

You Will Get Through This Night

It is a nonfiction read about mental health that offers both a personal and professional outlook on how to survive the hardest mental health days. Dividing the book into three chapters — This Night, Tomorrow, and The Days After — Daniel Howell wants readers to not just survive the hard nights but properly care for our mental health.

1. What do Cloud Cuckoo Land and Pony have in common?

A．Plot.

B．Literary form.

C．Characters.

D．Writing background.

2. Which book is specially designed for teenagers?

A．Cloud Cuckoo Land.	B．Crying in H Mart.
C．Pony.	D．You Will Get Through This Night.

3. What is the feature of You Will Get Through This Night?

A．It is about psychological health.	B．It helps cure physical disabilities.
C．It is a collection of personal stories.	D．It mainly solves sleeping problems.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

There are several qualities of literature. One of them is its description of     1    (true) and beauty. Some truth and beauty remain unnoticed     2    a sensitive human soul brings them to our attention. A hundred men may pass a field and     3    (see) only dead grass; but a poet stops, looks deeper, sees truth and beauty, and writes. “Yesterday’s flowers am I.” One     4    (read) it is capable of seeing the beauty that     5    (hide) from his eyes before. Another quality is its appeal to our feelings and imagination. Its attraction lies     6    (much) in what it awakens in us than what it says. When Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus asks in     7    presence of Helen, “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” he opens a door through     8    our imagination enters a new world, a world of love, beauty and     9    (hero). In general, literature is the written record of man’s     10    (think) and feelings, and the history of the human soul.

4 . A lost poem by Anne Frank that she wrote shortly before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis has been unearthed (找到) more than 70 years later. The previously-unseen eight-line poem was penned (写) by the Jewish schoolgirl for the sister of her closest friend on March 28, 1942. She wrote it, aged 12, in a book belonging to Christiane ‘Cri-cri’ Van Maarsen, the younger sister of her best friend Jacqueline.

Anne Frank was born in 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, but her family fled the Nazis in 1933, moving to Amsterdam where her father worked in the fruit extract business. But in 1940, Holland was occupied by the Nazis and the family were once again under threat because they were Jews.

The newly found poem was written in Dutch, begins Dear Cri-Cri, and seems to be giving homely advice to the younger girl. It reads:

If you did not finish your work properly,

And lost precious time,

Then once again take up your task

And try harder than before.

If others have reproached you

For what you have done wrong,

Then be sure to amend your mistake.

That is the best memory one can make.

Cri - cri died 10 years ago and her sister has now put the poem up for auction (拍卖), where it is expected to fetch around 50, 000 euros (£ 42, 000).

Her diary was left behind when the hiding place was eventually discovered by Dutch collaborators (通敌者) in August 1944, who handed them over to the occupying German Army in 1944.

The family ended up in a concentration camp and Anne died in February or March 1945. But her father Otto, who survived the camps, returned to the house in Amsterdam and found Anne's diary, which had been kept by a Dutch friend, Miep Gies.

Anne Frank's diary, an account of her life in hiding, was published in 1947 and became a global sensation, being translated into 67 languages. Thijs Blankevoort, director of Dutch auction house Bubb Kuyper Auctions, which is selling the poem this week, said: “The poem is very simple but very significant because it is very rare.”

1. Who was the poem written for by Anne?

A．Her good friend living in Amsterdam.	B．A Dutch friend living in Frankfurt.
C．Cri - cri's sister Jacqueline.	D．Jacqueline's younger sister.

2. Anne wrote the poem to the receiver to suggest her ________.

A．finishing homework as early as possible

B．controlling the temper faced with blame

C．valuing time and correcting mistakes once told

D．remembering to correct mistakes in life and study

3. The underlined word “reproach” in the poem can be replaced by “________”.

A．bury

B．sell

C．blame

D．examine

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．A Lost Poem by Anne Frank Unearthed.	B．Anne Frank's Another Famous Poem.
C．Approaching to Anne Frank's Poems.	D．Welcome to Anne Frank's New Poetry.

5 . 阅读下面短文,在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

A yellow teddy bear, found in a dustbin half a century ago,    1    (become) a star exhibit of the Benaki Museum of Toys in Athens since the museum opened in 2017. The adventurous bear,    2     important collection item in Europe associated with childhood, has also reached China through a children's book written by Greek     3    (educate) and author Eleni Geroulanou. In her fairy tale Once upon a time, a bear,    4     has been translated into Chinese and published by China's Hebei Children's Publishing House, the teddy bear wanders around the city     5     search of his home. He     6    (eventual) finds a new home and family in the embrace of Maria Argyriadis, a Greek researcher of toys who picks up the bear from the dustbin.

Along with the museum opening its doors in 2017, people were delighted to see the book    7    (print) in Greek. In 2019 at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy, a Greek publisher showed the book to a Chinese publisher, who     8    (touch) by the story and decided to publish it in China. Due to the pandemic, Geroulanou has not been able to visit China yet, but she is looking forward to, when things get better,    9    (meet) with Chinese readers of her book. She says that both Greece and China have rich cultures and traditions dating back to ancient times, and     10     there is so much to learn from each other.

6 . From the ancient Chinese stories, to the stories in the medieval cathedrals（中世纪的教堂）in the west, it is perfectly clear that there is strong pleasure and meaning to gain from stories told through images or pictures. People are lucky enough to have had books with both pictures and words when they were children.    1    .

After the world wars, the cheap books without pictures were everywhere and it made reading books illustrated with pictures for adults a very luxurious thing. Somehow, pictures had also come to seem childish or strange.    2    Just as the ever-increasing popularity of the graphic novel（连环画小说）suggests, works both words and pictures are regarded as classics.

    3    In fact the former develops from the latter. Early writing systems such as those in Egypt and China: things in the world were expressed in written form by drawing special pictures.       4    In some languages, the sound associated with an image are separated from its original meaning.

What is the use of a book without pictures? Very little, it turns out, particularly if we consider that pictures are buried within the very symbols used to write words. As for a picture book for adults, author Tokarczuk sweeps away all doubts. She adores the picture book.    5    This kind of story is able to get through to anyone – regardless of age, cultural differences or level of education. It’s hard to disagree.

A．Because it is hard to read books with pictures.

B．And yet readers love stories told through pictures.

C．However, words and pictures are not always connected.

D．Text and picture, after all, are not so far apart.

E．For her it is a powerful, old way of telling a story.

F．Adults are thought foolish to read such books.

G．They often remember the pictures as clearly as the words.

7 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

While English speakers look back to the time of Shakespeare and Milton 400 years ago as a Golden age, Chinese look back far     1     (far), to the Tang dynasty 1, 200 years ago as their Golden age of literature.

A key feature of Chinese poetry is     2     it is concise (简洁的). Each character places a thought, an impression, an image. Emphasis is put on use of rhythm and sometimes in a     3     (balance) look of the characters so that it is     4     (visual) pleasing on paper.

Amazing 48, 000 poems have survived from the many Tang dynasty poets. After the Tang, poets struggled     5     (establish) a modern style that was not rooted in the glories of the past. Later the style of the Song dynasty did become a popular form. So many people enjoy such     6     (popular) because it was more fluent and less rigid than that of the Tang.

Many poems contain specific events from Chinese history, and that makes understanding these poems     7     challenge to non-Chinese. Translating Chinese poems into English     8     (cause) all sorts of problems. For many years, writers have tried to convey the spirit of poems     9     different ways. Although much is lost in translation, the core (核心) meaning can     10     (catch) and appreciated.