If you have been a book lover since your childhood, you may have heard of the Newbery Medal. It goes to the best children’s books each year. But you may not know the person behind the prize. His name is John Newbery.

John Newbery was born in England in 1713. Back then, there weren’t many books for children. People didn’t think stories were important. However, Newbery believed kids should have books of their own. He thought young people should learn about the world from books and enjoy reading too.

As a child, Newbery was a huge book lover. Since he didn’t want to be a farmer, he became a publisher（出版人）when he grew up. He began this work in the town of Reading in England. Then he moved to London in 1743. Newbery published his first children’s book A Little Pretty Pocket-Book in 1744 and it became a huge success.

Soon, Newbery began publishing more children’s books. Some were about science and others were nursery rhymes（童谣）. In 1765, Newbery published The history of Little Goody Two-Shoes, a novel for kids. It made the saying “goody two-shoes” popular, which is used to describe a person who is overly well-behaved in a way that is forced and artificial（假装的）.

As a publisher, Newbery helped publish about 500 books for readers of all ages. That included more than 100 books for kids. This is why people call him “The Father of Children’s Literature”. And for more than 100 years, children’s book writers have been honored with the Newbery Medal for their great work.

Kids now can learn a valuable lesson from Newbery’s life. “He followed his passion（热情）,” said Michelle Markel, a children’s book writer. “He just loved books, and he thought everybody should have the chance to read them.”

My name is Toby. I’m eighty-three years old now. I once knew the greatest man in England. William Shakespeare was his name. I first met William near a big field of apple trees in the town named Stratford in October, 1579. He told me he was 15 years old. He was two years older than me. He had a sister, Joan, and two younger brothers, Gilbert and Richard. And the next year he had another brother, Edmund. After William’s parents died, he and his sister lived with his mother’s brother. I became his friend from that day until he died. We met nearly every day. We were friends for thirty years.

I once worked with him in the theatre, through the good times and the bad times. William was good at acting. He could make all kinds of people pleased. By 1592, he became very famous. He was always busy day and night. I didn’t know when he slept. He not only acted in plays, but also wrote his own plays. In his whole life, William wrote 37 plays in all. He was the best playwright in England.

He wrote a play about love in 1595. It was Romeo and Juliet. He once used my name, Toby, in his play — Twelfth Night. In this play, Sir Toby Belch was a big fat man, who liked drinking too much and having a good time. Queen Elizabeth the First watched this play on the 6th of January, 1601. She liked it.

William Shakespeare is dead now, of course. He has been dead for more than thirty years. There’s no singing, no dancing, no plays. It isn’t like that in my young days. But I can still think — and remember when William and I were young, we had a good time in London, William and I ...

American writer Toni Morrison was born in Ohio in 1931. She was raised in an African American family filled with songs and Southern fairy stories which later shaped her prose (散文). Her happy family life led to her excellent performance in school, although there was an atmosphere of racial discrimination (种族歧视) in the society.

After graduating from college, Morrison started to work as a teacher and got married in 1958.

Several years later, her marriage began to fail. For a short-term escape, she joined a small writers’ group, in which each member was required to bring a story or poem for discussion. She wrote a story based on the life of a girl she knew in childhood who wished for blue eyes. The story was well received by the group, but then she put it away, thinking she was done with it.

In 1964, Morrison ended her marriage and devoted herself to writing. One day, she dusted off the story she had written for the writer’s group and decided to make it into a novel. She drew on her memories from childhood and expanded upon them using her imagination so that the characters developed a life of their own. The Bluest Eye was eventually published in 1970.

From 1970 to 1992, Morrison published five more novels. In her novels, Morrison brings in different elements (要素) of the African American past, their struggles, problems and cultural memory. In Song of Solomon, for example, Morrison tells the story of an African American man and his search for identity in his culture. The novels and other works won her several prizes. In 1993, Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature (文学). She is the eighth woman and the first African American woman to win the honor.