To honor the best books for young adults and children, TIME has created this list of classics: Best Young-Adult and Children’s Books.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie’s coming-of-age novel shows family and traditions through young Arnold Spirit, torn between his life in an Indian community and his largely white high school. The specifics are sharply drawn, but this novel, with its themes of self-discovery, speaks to young readers everywhere.
Harry Potter
What more can be said about J. K. Rowling’s unique series? How about this: seven years after the final book was published, readers young and old still go crazy at the slightest rumor of a new Potter story.
The Book Thief
For many young readers, Markus Zusak’s novel provides their first in-depth reflection of the Holocaust(大屠杀). Although terror surrounds Liesel, a young German girl, so too does evidence of friendship, love and charity — recovering lights in the darkness.
A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L’Engle’s super-realist adventure has provided generations of children with their first-ever exciting experiences, as Meg travels across the fifth dimension(维度) in search of her father. But the science fiction also has a message: Meg learns independence and bravery in the process.
Charlotte’s Web
Readers are still drawn to the simplicity and beauty of spider Charlotte’s devotion to her pig friend Wilbur. Though family farms may be less common than they were in 1952, E. B. White’s novel remains timeless for its lasting reflection on the power of friendship and of good writing.
Holes
Louis Sachar’s story of a family curse(诅咒), fancy sports shoes and poisonous lizards moves forward and backward through time, telling of how Stanley Yelnats IV ended up in a prison camp. It’s an introduction to a complex story, filled with fun, warmth and a truly memorable criminal.
Matilda
With apologies to the lovable Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this may be Roald Dahl’s most inspiring book for young people. Poor Matilda feels troubled and ignored by her family — a sense that many preteens share. They don’t share her supernatural powers, but that’s the lasting appeal of this escapist fun.
The Outsiders
Published when author S. E. Hinton was just 18, this coming-of-age novel offers evidence that even the youngest writer can provide valuable wisdom. Her striking look at Ponyboy and gang life in the 1960s has continued to have a powerful effect for decades on readers of all kinds, whether they identify more with the Greasers or the Socs.
The Phantom Tollbooth
In a humorous, sharp fairy tale(童话故事) that shows language and mathematics through a story of adventure in the Kingdom of Wisdom, Jules Feiffer’s unusual drawings do as much as Norton Juster’s plain language combined with complex ideas to carry readers through Digitopolis and the Mountains of Ignorance.
The Giver
Lois Lowry’s tale of self-discovery in society has a memorable central character, Jonas, and an unforgettable message — that pain and harm have an important place in individual lives and in society, and to forget them is to lose what makes us human.Which of the following shares the same theme with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?
| A．A Wrinkle in Time | B．The Giver |
| C．The Book Thief | D．Harry Potter |
According to the passage, The Phantom Tollbooth ______.
| A．contains a lot of fancy pictures |
| B．talks only about maths problems |
| C．describes a journey in complex language |
| D．sets its background in the Kingdom of Freedom |
It can be learned from the passage that ______.
| A．Charlotte fell in love with Wilbur |
| B．Matilda was well cared for in her family |
| C．Stanley Yelnats IV got punished |
| D．S. E. Hinton was best at telling fairy tales |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To advertise for some booksellers. |
| B．To introduce some famous writers. |
| C．To admire some classics for kids and young adults. |
| D．To recommend some great works of TIME magazine. |
America is growing older. Fifty years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the United States were 65 or older. Today, 10 out of every 100 Americans are over 65. The aging of the population will affect American society in many ways — education, medicine, and business. Quietly, the aging of America has made us a very different society — one in which people have a quite different idea of what kind of behavior is suitable at various ages.
A person’s age no longer tells you anything about his/ her social position, marriage or health. There’s no longer a particular year in which one goes to school or goes to work or gets married or starts a family. The social clock that kept us on time and told us when to go to school, get a job, or stop working isn’t as strong as it used to be. It doesn’t surprise us to hear of a 29-year-old university president or a 35-year-old grandmother, or a 70-year-old man who has become a father for the first time. Public ideas are changing.
Many people say, “I am much younger than my mother or my father was at my age.” No one says “Act your age” any more. We’ve stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways.It can be learned from the text that the aging of the population in America ________.
| A．has made people feel younger |
| B．has changed people’s social position |
| C．has changed people’s understanding of age |
| D．has slowed down the country’s social development |
The underlined word “one” refers to ________.
| A．a society | B．America | C．a place | D．population |
“Act your age” means people should ________.
| A．be active when they are old |
| B．do the right thing at the right age |
| C．show respect to their parents young or old |
| D．take more physical exercises suitable to their age |
f a’ 25-year-old man becomes general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it _________.
| A．normal | B．wonderful | C．unbelievable | D．unreasonable |
The question of what children learn, and how they should learn, is continually being debated and redebated. Nobody dares any longer to defend the old system, the learning of lessons parrot-fashion, the grammar-with-a-whip system, which was good enough for our grandparents. The theories of modem psychology have stepped in to argue that we must understand the need of children. Children are not just small adults; they are children who must be respected as much.
Well, you may say, this is as it should be, a good idea. But think further. What happens? "Education" becomes the responsibility not of teachers, but of psychologists (心里学家). What happens then? Teachers worry too much about the psychological implications (暗示) of their lessons, and forget about the subjects themselves. If a child dislikes a lesson, the teacher feels that it is his fault, not the child’s. So teachers worry whether history is "relevant" to modern young children. And do they dare to recount stories about violence? Or will this make the children themselves violent? Can they tell their classes about children of different races, or will this encourage racial hatred? Why teach children to write grammatical sentences? Verbal expression is better. Sums? Arithmetic? No: Real-life mathematical situations are more understandable.
You see, you can go too far. Influenced by educational theorists, who have nothing better to do than to write books about their ideas, teachers leave their teacher-training colleges filled with grand, psychological ideas about children and their needs. They make elaborate, sophisticated (精致的，复杂的) preparations and try out their "modem methods" on the long-suffering children. Since one "modem method" rapidly replaces another the poor kids will have had a good bellyful by the time they leave school. Frequently the modem methods are so sophisticated that they fail to be understood by the teachers, let alone the children; even more often, the relaxed discipline so essential for the " informal" feelings the class must have, prevents all but a handful of children from learning anything.People do not dare defend the old system mainly because under the old system________.
| A．too much grammar was taught to children |
| B．children were spoiled (宠坏) |
| C．children were treated as grown-ups |
| D．children were made to learn passively(被动的) |
What view do the modem psychologists hold?
| A．Children must be understood and respected. |
| B．Children are small adults and know what they need. |
| C．Children are better off without learning lessons. |
| D．Education of children is the responsibility of psychologists. |
What happens when teachers pay too much attention to the psychology of their lessons?
| A．They find that the children dislike the lessons. |
| B．They tend to blame students for their failure. |
| C．They do not pay enough attention to the actual lessons. |
| D．They no longer want to teach children history. |
Grammatical sentences are regarded as unimportant because ________.
| A．it is better to use verbs only |
| B．words are said out of natural feelings only |
| C．talking freely and naturally without sentences is a better form of expression |
| D．it is felt that formal grammar rules might cause unnatural expressions |
according to the passage, the modern methods are understood by ________.
| A．neither teachers nor pupils |
| B．only a handful of teachers and pupils |
| C．the more sophisticated teachers |
| D．everyone who enjoys the relaxed discipline of the informal classes |
As a human being you may have the choice of three basic attitudes towards life. You may treat life with the philosophy (哲学) of the vegetable, in which case your life will include being born, eating, drinking, sleeping, marrying, growing old and dying.
The second basic attitude is to look at life as if it were a business. A great many so-called successful men and women believe that life is a business. If you believe so, your first question of life, naturally, is " What do I get out of it? " " How much is this worth to me?" In a word, based on this attitude, happiness becomes a matter of successful competition. The great majority of human beings today look at life as if it were a business.
The third attitude toward life is the way of the artist. Here the basic philosophy is "What can I put into it?". They value cooperation and contribution. This point of view has been proved by history; for history remembers best those who have contributed most richly to the interests of their fellow-men. The more we investigate(调查),the more we become certain that the artistic attitude is the only one which goes with human happiness.From the passage we know people who take the second life attitude ________.
| A．are mostly businessmen |
| B．think of getting the interests (利益) first |
| C．find their happiness from hard work |
| D．take competition as their whole life |
People who are best remembered by history are probably
| A．those living on vegetables | B．successful men |
| C．artists | D．businessmen |
We may infer from this passage that ________.
| A．some people are living only on vegetables |
| B．the artistic attitude is accepted by most people |
| C．the writer prefers the third life attitude |
| D．artists do most for the society in order to be remembered longer than others |
Brazil has become one. of the developing world’s great successes at reducing population growth but more by accident than design. While countries such as India have made joint efforts to reduce birth rates, Brazil had better results without really trying, says George Martine at Harvard.
Brazil’s population growth rate dropped from 2. 99% a year between 1951 and 1960 to 1. 93% a year between 198 land 1990, and Brazilian women now have only 2. 7 children on average. Martine says this figure may have fallen still further since 1990, an achievement that makes it the envy of many other Third World countries.
Martine puts it down to, among other things, soap operas (肥皂剧) and installment (分期付款) plans introduced in the 1970s. Both played an important, although indirect, role in lowering the birth rate. Brazil is one of the world’s biggest producers of soap operas. Globo, Brazil’s most popular television network, shows three hours of soaps six nights a week, while three others show at least one hour a night. Most soaps are based on wealthy characters living the high life in big cities.
Although they have never really tried to work in a message towards the problems of reproduction, they describe middle and upper class values: not many children, women working, says Martine. They sent this image to all parts of Brazil and made people conscious (有意识的) of other patterns of behaviour and other values, which were put into a very attractive package.
Meanwhile, the installment plans tried to encourage the poor to become consumers. " This led to an enormous change in consumption (消费) patterns and consumption was incompatible (不相容的) with unlimited reproduction," says Martine.according to the passage, Brazil has lowered its population growth ________.
| A．by educating its citizens | B．by careful family planning |
| C．by developing TV programmes | D．by chance |
according to the passage, many Third World countries
| A．haven’t given much attention to birth control |
| B．would soon join Brazil in controlling their birth rate |
| C．haven’t yet found an effective measure to control their population |
| D．haven’t realized the importance of TV plays in family planning |
Soap operas have helped in lowering Brazil’s birth rate because ________.
| A．they keep people sitting long hours watching TV |
| B．they have gradually changed people’s way of life |
| C．people are drawn to their attractive package |
| D．they popularize birth control measures |
What is Martine’s conclusion about Brazil’s population growth?
| A．The increase in birth rate will increase consumption. |
| B．The desire for consumption helps to reduce birth rate. |
| C．Consumption goes with reproduction. |
| D．A country ‘s production is limited by its population growth. |
In a time of low academic (学术的) achievement by children in the United States, many Americans are turning to Japan, a country of high academic achievement and economic success, for possible answers. however, the answers provided by Japanese preschools are not the ones Americans expected to find. In most Japanese preschools, surprisingly little emphasis is put on academic instruction. In one investigation, 300 Japanese and 210 American preschool teachers, child development specialists, and parents were asked about various aspects of early childhood education. Only 2 percent of the Japanese respondents (答问卷者) listed "to give children a good start academically" as one of their top three reasons for a society to have preschools. In contrast, over half the American respondents chose this as one of their top three choices. To prepare children for successful careers in first grade and beyond, Japanese schools do not teach reading, writing, and mathematics, but rather skills such as persistence, concentration, and the ability to function as a member of a group. The majority of young Japanese children are taught to read at home by their parents.
In the recent comparison of Japanese and American preschool education, 91 percent of Japanese respondents chose providing children with a group experience as one of their top three reasons for a society to have preschools. 62 percent of the more individually oriented (强调个性发展的) Americans listed group experience as one of their top three choices. An emphasis on the importance of the group seen in Japanese early childhood education continues into elementary school education.
Like in America, there is diversity (多样性) in Japanese early childhood education. Some Japanese kindergartens have specific aims, such as early musical training or potential (潜力) development. In large cities, some kindergartens are attached to universities that have elementary and secondary schools.
Some Japanese parents believe that if their young children attend a university-based program, it will increase the children’s chances of eventually being admitted to top-rated schools and universities. Several more progressive programs have introduced free play as a way out for the heavy intellectualizing in some Japanese kindergartens.We learn from the first paragraph that many Americans believe ________.
| A．Japanese parents pay more attention to preschool education than American parents |
| B．Japan’s economic success is a result of its scientific achievements |
| C．Japanese preschool education emphasizes academic instruction |
| D．Japan’s higher education is better than theirs |
Most American respondents believe that preschools should also attach
importance to ________.
| A．problem solving | B．group experience |
| C．parental guidance | D．individually oriented development |
In Japan’s preschool education, the focus is on ________.
| A．preparing children academically | B．developing children’s artistic interests |
| C．tapping children’s potential | D．shaping children’s character |
Why do some Japanese parents send their children to university-based kindergartens?
| A．They can do better in their future studies. |
| B．They can gain more group experience there. |
| C．They can be individually oriented when they grow up. |
| D．They can have better chances of getting a first-rate education. |