Do you like reading? What would you like to read? Here are four recommendations from trusted critics.

A Greenglass House Story Kate Milford, illustrated by Nicole Wong	Twelve guests, trapped at the Blue Vein Tavern by rising floodwaters, tell stories to pass the time. With tales that cross over between storytelling and reality, what starts as a series of unrelated tales weaves(编织）together into something smart and tight.A puzzle book that adults may enjoy just as much as its intended child audience. (For ages 4 to 8)
Someone Builds the Dream Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Loren Long	Someone Builds the Dream is a celebration of the cooperative spirit and a proof to what we can achieve if we work together.And after having the curtain pulled back like this, children (and probably many grown-ups) will look at the world around them with fresh eyes. (For ages 5 to 8)
The Boy and the Sea Camille Andros, illustrated by Amy Bates	Following a young boy over a lifetime,Camille Andros' story flows back with a comforting rhythm while Amy Bates' timeless artwork washes over you. As the boy grows older, he returns regularly to the sea looking for answers but discovers something more valuable: visual angle. (For ages 4 to 8)
Magic Candies Heena Baek, translated by Sophie Bowman	When Tong Tong purchases a bag of strange, round candies, he discovers that each one allows him to hear the hidden speech of someone, or something. Honestly, who wouldn't want to hear what the leaves have to say? You'll also be sure to treat your chair with greater kindness after a single read.(For ages 4 to 8)

Scientists say the plant enset, an Ethiopian staple (主食), could be a new superfood and a lifesaver in the face of climate change. The banana-like crop has the potential to feed more than 100 million people in a warming world, according to a new study.

Enset or “false banana”, almost unknown outside of Ethiopia, is a close relative of the banana but is consumed only in one part of this country. The banana-like fruit of the plant is inedible, but the starchy stems and roots can be fermented and used to make porridge and bread. Research suggests the crop can be grown over a much larger range in Africa. “This is a crop that can play a really important role in addressing food security and sustainable development,” said a university professor in Awasa, Ethiopia.

Using agricultural surveys and modelling work, scientists predicted the potential range of enset over the next four decades. They found the crop could potentially feed more than 100 million people and boost food security in Ethiopia and other African countries, including Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

Study researcher Dr James Borrell, of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said planting enset as a buffer crop for lean times could help boost food security. “It’s got some really unusual traits that make it absolutely unique as a crop,” he said. “You plant it at any time, you harvest it at any time. That’s why they call it the tree against hunger.”

There is growing interest in seeking new plants to feed the world, given our reliance on a few staple crops. Nearly half of all the calories we eat come from three species - rice, wheat, and maize. “We need to diversify the plants we use globally as a species because all our eggs are in a very small basket at the moment,” said Dr Borrell.

When Mexican scientist of the evolution of animal behavior, Laura Cuaya, moved to Hungary for her postdoctoral studies in Budapest, she brought her pet dog, Kun-kun, along for the ride. Cuaya couldn't help noticing how locals warmed to dogs. This prompted her naturally curious scientific mind to start asking questions. “Here people are talking all the time to Kun-kun, but I always wonder if Kun-kun can recognize that people in Budapest speak Hungarian, not Spanish?” So she set out to find an answer through a scientific study.

Cuaya and her colleagues decided to use brain images from MRI scanning to shed light on her hunch. They worked with dogs of various ages that had, until the experiment, only heard their owners speak just one of the two languages, Spanish or Hungarian. Not surprisingly, getting the dogs to happily take part in the experiment took some creative coaxing and animal training! The researchers first needed to teach Kun-kun and her 17 fellow participating dogs including a labradoodle, a golden retriever and Australian shepherds, to lie still in a brain scanner. Their pet parents were always present, and they could leave the scanner at any point.

The research team played children's book classic The Little Prince in both Spanish and Hungarian while scanning the dogs' brains with an MRI machine. They were looking for evidence that their brains reacted differently to a familiar and unfamiliar language. The researchers also played scrambled versions of the story to find out if dogs could distinguish between speech and non-speech.

The images reveal that dogs' brains show different patterns of activity for an unfamiliar language than for a familiar one — the first time anyone has proved, researchers say, that a non-human brain can distinguish between two languages. This means that the sounds and rhythms of a familiar language are accessible to non-humans.

Interestingly, the team also found that the brains of older dogs were more skilled at detecting speech “suggesting a role for the amount of language exposure”. They suggest that dogs have refined their ability to distinguish between human languages over the long process of domestication.