I was always a reader. As a kid, I walked to the library several times a week and_________up late reading with a flashlight. I checked out so many books and returned them so_________that the librarian once snapped, "Don't take home so many books_________you're not going to read them all."

"But I did read them all," I said.

I was an English major at university and went on to get a master's in literature. When I created my online dating_________, I made my screen name—"missbibliophile52598". Filling out the "favorite books" section, I let my taste in literature_________for me: One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Moveable Feast, White Teeth, How to Read the Air.

_________, I realized it had been more than two years since I had read most of those titles. I had stopped reading gradually, the way one_________or dies. I tried to_________my bookish persona（人设）. I joined book clubs that I never attended. I requested a library book everyone was reading, only to return it_________.

I still____________the idea of reading. Whenever I found a bookstore, I would linger____________the shelves for hours as if____________up with old friends, picking out volumes I had read and buying____________ones. But it was____________to me: I was becoming a person I did not know.

David was my first online____________. His profile said he liked to read, so I asked him about his last book. His face____________and his fingers danced. David read much more than I did, about a book or two a week. We seemed a（n）____________couple: me, a five-foot-three black woman____________to a Caribbean mother, and him, a six-foot-four white guy from Ohio. But as we got to know each other, our____________faith and mutual love of books____________our gaps.

Now that we have briefly explored the history of the short story and heard from a few of its creators, let us consider the role of the reader. Readers are not empty vessels that wait, ________ raised, to receive a teacher’s or a critic’s interpretation. They bring their unique life experiences to the story. With these ________, the best readers also bring their attention, their reading skills, and most importantly, their ________ to a reading of a story.

My students always ________ me to discuss, analyze, interpret, and evaluate the stories we read without destroying the excitement of being beamed up into another world. For years I struggled with one response after the other to this challenge. Then one day I read an article by a botanist who had ________ the beauty of flowers by x-raying them. His illustrations showed the rose and the lily in their ________ beauty, and his x-rays ________ the wonders of their construction. I brought the article to class, where we discussed the benefits of examining the internal ________ of flowers, relationships, current events, and short stories.

A short story, ________, is not a fossil to admire. Readers must ask questions, guess at the answers, ________ what will happen next, then read to discover. They and the author form a partnership that brings the story to life. Awareness of this partnership keeps the original excitement alive through discussion, analysis, interpretation, and ________. Literary explorations allow the reader to admire the authors’ ________ as well as their artistry. In fact, original appreciation may be enhanced by this x-ray vision. The final step is to appreciate once again the story ________ — to put the pieces back together.

Now it is your turn. Form a partnership with your author. During your adventure in reading, enter into a ________ with the published scholars featured in Short Stories for Students. Through this dialogue with experts you will revise, enrich, or ________ your original observations and interpretations.

During this adventure, I hope you will feel the same as the listeners that surround the neck of my Pueblo storyteller.

Traditional fairytales are being abandoned by parents because they are too scary for their young children, a study found.

Research revealed one in five parents has ________ old classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Rapunzel （长发公主）in _______of more modern books. One third of parents said their children have been left in_____after hearing the horrible details of Little Red Riding Hood. And nearly half of mothers and fathers ______ to read Rumplestiltskin （纺织姑娘）to their kids as the ________ of the story are kidnapping and killing. ______, Goldilocks and the Three Bears was also a tale likely to be________ on the book shelf as parents felt ______ condones（宽恕）stealing.

The ______ of 2,000 adults was commissioned（委任） to_______ the launch of the hit US drama GRIMM,_____starts tonight at 9 p.m. on Watch, and sees six pieces________on traditional fairytales. The poll found a quarter of parents polled wouldn’t ________ reading a fairytale to their child until they had ________ the age of five. And 52 percent of the parents said Cinderella didn’t send a good _________to their children as it describes a young woman _________housework all day.

Steve Hornsey, General Manager of Watch, said: “Bedtime stories are supposed to comfort children and send them off to __________soundly.

Fairytales can be dark and dramatic tales so it’s _________that parents worry about reading them to young children. The study also found two thirds of mums and dads try to ________stories which might give their children nightmares. ________, half of parents said traditional tales are more likely to have a strong moral message than a lot of modern kids’ books, such as The Gruffalo, The Hungary Caterpillar and the Mr. Men books.