When my daughter Sara was in the fifth grade, she came to me with a problem. “Marcy hates me!” she cried “Because Kathy is my friend, too. She wants me to be her friend and nobody else’s. You talk to Marcy. You tell her that I want to be her friend, but I can have other friends, too!”

Oh! I looked at her for a few moments, wondering how I got into this mess (困境), when suddenly an idea came to me.

Picking up two baskets from the living room, I explained, “When everyone is born, he or she has a little basket. This little one here is yours. The big one is mine. As you grow, so does the basket. You can see your little basket is inside mine because when you were born, there were too many things you couldn’t do for yourself. I did everything you couldn’t do on your own.”

She nodded.

“Well, as you grew older and began to do some things on your own, I began placing a few more things in your basket. When you learned to tie your shoes, that went in your basket.”

She said softly, “I can tie my own shoes.”

“Right. As you grow older, there will be more and more things you must do on your own.” As I spoke, I gradually took her basket out of mine and handed it to her. “You will finally carry your own basket with things only you can do.”

She looked up at me and said, “I understand. There are some things that I have to do by myself because they are in my basket.”

18 years ago, a 14-year-old boy from Kasungu district in Malawi was forced to drop out of school for lack of fees. At the same time, a severe famine was destroying his village, claiming people’s lives and leaving desperation in its wake.

This was a situation to break the strongest of minds but William Kamkwamba did not give up. Young as he was, he knew that education was where his future lay. He found hope in the library and feasted on the knowledge that he harvested from its books. It was there that he came across a science textbook entitled Using Energy. He learned that he could generate electricity using wind. The youngster realized that, if mastered, this power could help his village in exceptional ways.

Armed with determination and an iron will, the teenager set out to build a windmill out of random materials from a scrapyard (垃圾场). Though his outside world was collapsing to dust, the youngster did not hesitate about his purpose. He defended himself from all doubt and criticism. He worked tirelessly until his dream of bringing electricity to his village became reality. Soon, he was caught in the center of media attention that took him to new places that he would never have stepped on without his invention.

In his village, the dust has not settled yet and the winds of change continue to blow across the land. Windmills pump water to irrigate crops, sweeping away another period of hunger. William’s former primary school boasts new and stronger buildings, thanks to the help of well-wishers and the villagers’ united efforts.

What seemed like a hopeless situation has been turned into an inspirational story that motivates each and every one of us, persuading us that no misfortune is set in stone. William refused to be a school drop-out forever. He sought solutions for his problems and continued fighting even when the going got tough. He was able to rise above poverty to become a graduate from one of America’s best universities, Dartmouth College.

There is no question that as the first president of the United States, George Washington’s achievements were enormous. But how much of what we know about him is fact and how much is legend? Did Washington as a boy really say “I can’t tell a lie” after damaging his father’s prized cherry tree with a hatchet (斧头)?

In a word, no. This is not to say that young Washington was a Pinocchio. It’s just that there is no evidence that this event actually occurred.

When Washington died in 1799, Americans were well aware of his public accomplishments but knew little about his personal life, and they were eager to fill that gap. Mason Locke Weems, a book agent, saw that need and was ready to meet it as one of Washington’s first biographers (传记作者). He determined he would show that Washington’s unparalleled (空前的) rise was due to his great virtues. In the process, Weems described Washington as a role model for the newly established country.

Weems’s The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington was first published in 1800, but his story about the cherry tree was not added until the book’s fifth edition in 1806. Weems claimed that he had heard the story from an elderly friend of the Washington family, but there was no evidence to support his claim.

In 1836, William Holmes McGuffey rewrote the cherry tree story for children as “The Little Boy and the Hatchet” in his McGuffey Readers, a series of grammar school books. Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the story was retold in a variety of readers and textbooks.

In the process, the cherry tree story would define Washington’s character for generations of Americans. And although there is no definite proof, Americans have come to believe that the cherry tree story is true.