When I was in the third grade, I was chosen to be the princess in the school play. For weeks my mother had helped me practice my lines（台词）. But once on the stage, every word      from my head. Then my teacher asked me to change my role to be a narrator（解说者）for the play.        I didn’t tell my mother what had happened that day, she noticed my       and asked if I wanted to take a walk in the garden.
It was a lovely spring day. We could see dandelions（蒲公英）popping（炸开）     the grass in bunches（束）. I watched my mother bend down by one of the bunches. “I think I’ll dig up（挖光）all these weeds（野草）,” she said. “From now on, we’ll       have roses in this garden.”
“But I like dandelions,” I protested（抗议）. “All the flowers are        -- even dandelions!”
My mother looked at me seriously. “Yes, every flower gives pleasure in its own way, doesn’t it?” she asked thoughtfully. I nodded. “And that is        of people, too.” She added.
When I       that she had guessed my pain, I started to cry and told her the truth. “But you will be a wonderful narrator,” she said,       me of how much I loved to read stories aloud.
Thanks to my mother’s encouragement, I got to know everybody had his or her own      in the world, I felt proud of the role in the play.

All the wisdom of the times, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply available to all of us in books, but we must know how to make use of this treasure. The unluckiest people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.
I’m very interested in people and finding out about them. Some of the most amazing people I’ve met could only  be found in a writer’s imagination, then in his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I’ve found in books new friends and new worlds.
Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the writer’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.
Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate(分开的), in some way they are connected with each other. The same ideas, or related(相关的) ones, appear in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in books, but with different solutions(解决方法) according to different writings at different times. Books influence each other. They connect the past, the present and the future and have their own generations (age groups), like families. Wherever you start reading, you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas, and in the end, you not only find out about the world and the people in it, you find out about yourself, too.
Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on(专注于) books somebody tells you “ought” to read, you probably won’ t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time — and if you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won’t suffer during the process.
【小题1】Which of the following ideas may the writer of this article agree with?

Learners of English, especially self-taught learners may have troubles in understanding speeches by native speakers. The following ways might help improve their listening ability.
First of all, do things step by step. It is not good to listen something beyond your level. Better choose a suitable course and start the first book. Go on to the second book only after you are sure you understand the first one.
Secondly, stick to one course of study. Don’t change books often. Never let your attention be attracted by another course just because it seems to be more “fashionable.”
Thirdly, listen to the English news program over the radio from time to time. Better go through the news stories in the Chinese-language newspaper first. That will make it easy for you to understand the English news on the radio.
Fourthly, if you have time, listen to some interesting stories in some special English programs, such as V.O.A. or other listening materials of the same level as that of your textbook.
【小题1】“ Beyond your level”means something___________________________

Every school has a notice board. Let’s see what is on the notice board of an America school.