Overhead the sky was bright with stars. “Watch!” Incredibly, as his father spoke, one of the stars moved. In a streak of golden fire it flashed across the astonished heavens. And before the wonder of this could fade, another star leaped from its place, then another, moving quickly towards the sea.
“What is it?” the child whispered. “Shooting stars. They come every year on a certain night in August. I thought you would like to see the show.”
That was all: just an unexpected glimpse of something mysterious and beautiful. But, back in bed, the child stared for a long time into the dark, fascinated by the knowledge all around the quiet house. The night was full of the silent music of the falling stars.
Decades have passed, but I remember that night still, because I was the fortunate seven-year-old boy whose father believed that a new experience was more important for a small boy than an unbroken night’s sleep.
No doubt I had some usual childhood playthings, but these are forgotten now. What I remember is the night the stars fell. And the day we rode in a guard’s van, the time we tried to touch the crocodile, the telegraph we made that really worked. I remember the ‘trophy table’ in the hall where we children were encouraged to exhibit things we had found — snake skins, seashells, flowers, arrowheads, anything unusual or beautiful.
I remember the books left by my bed that pushed back my horizons and sometimes actually changed my life. Once my father gave me Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm’s classic story of undergraduate life at Oxford. I liked it, and told him so.
“Why don’t you think about going there yourself?” he said casually. A few years later with luck and a scholarship, I did.
My father had, to a marvellous degree, the gift of opening doors for his children, of leading them into areas of splendid newness. This subtle art of adding dimensions to a child’s world doesn’t necessarily require a great deal of time. It simply involves doing things more often with our children instead of for them or to them.
【小题1】What can we learn about the author after he first saw the shooting stars?| A．He changed his attitude towards stars. | B．He learnt a lot from his father. |
| C．He was deeply impressed. | D．He wanted to watch the stars again. |
| A．He was exposed to something new. |
| B．He had an unbroken night’s sleep. |
| C．He spent a whole night listening to music. |
| D．He watched the shooting stars for a whole night. |
| A．His father’s encouragement. | B．Max’s invitation. |
| C．His academic improvement. | D．His friend’s story. |
| A．Doing things more frequently for his children. |
| B．Taking his children out of their comfort zone. |
| C．Providing chances for his children to be connected with nature. |
| D．Stimulating his children’s interest in exploring an unknown world. |
