Q: Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism. I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story. Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Consider the most controversial, at least today, of Twain's novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain's most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel "trash and suitable only for the slums ." More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurences of the word nigger. (The term Nigger Jim, for which the novel is often severely criticized, never appears in it.) But the attacks were and are silly--and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim's search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction--a recognition that the slave had two personalities, "the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man." There is much more. Twain's mystery novel Pudd'nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain's tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master's baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master's baby by his wife. The slave's lightskinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master's wife's baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave. The point was difficult to miss: nurture , not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice--manner of speech, for example-- were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims. Twain's racial tone was not perfect. One is left uneasy, for example, by the lengthy passage in his autobiography about how much he loved what were called "nigger shows" in his youth--mostly with white men performing in black-face--and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them. Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality. His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that _ did not. Was Twain a racist? Asking the question in the 21st century is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln. If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the "wisdom" of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error. Lincoln, who believed the black man the inferior of the white, fought and won a war to free him. And Twain, raised in a slave state, briefly a soldier, and inventor of Jim, may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century.

1. Mark Twain
2. anti-slavery fiction
3. Stowe
4. slavery
5. directly
6. Huckleberry Finn
7. unknown
8. Jim
9. an escaped slave
10. yes
11. jim was a first in American fiction
12. Pudd'nhead Wilson
13. babies switched at birth
14. np
15. blacks were inferior to whites
16. a slave state
17. yes

Numbered questions:
1. Who is the inventor of the American Novel?
2. What had been an important part of literature before the Civil War?
3. Who wrote Uncle tom's cabin?
4. What did they deal with?
5. Directly or indirectly?
6. What book did he write?
7. Is it his most popular book?
8. Which character has the book been attacked because of?
9. What is he?
10. Do the attacks miss the point?
11. What did J. Chadwick point out?
12. What is twain's mystery novel?
13. What did it center around?
14. Was Twain's racial tone perfect?
15. What did Lincoln believe?
16. Where was Twain raised?
17. Was he a soldier?

Q: Green Eyes is a book. It's about a lovely cat called Green Eyes. He is one year old. He is interested in everything around him. He lives in his big red box and greets spring, summer, autumn and winter--each with their special colours and feelings .The pictures of the book are beautiful, and the words are easy to read. Many people have different ideas about it. Here're some _ of the readers . Hello Kitty: It is a great book about how a cat sees the seasons. I'm a teacher and I read it to my students every year when we study the seasons. A Sweet Girl: I'm a little girl from America. I've got the book on my 12thbirthday this year. My parents buy it for me. I love it so much. I often read it before going to bed. Warm Wind: I'm Jenny. I'm in the school reading club .We share our favourite book every Sunday. I share this book with other students in the club. They all like it.

1. Green Eyes
2. one year old
3. his big red box
4. yes
5. yes
6. no
7. from America
8. 12
9. Jenny
10. the school reading club .

Numbered questions:
1. what is the feline called?
2. what is it's age?
3. where does he reside?
4. are there images?
5. are they attractive?
6. is the wording difficult to understand?
7. where is the petite young woman from?
8. her age?
9. who is in a group at their schoolhouse?
10. what kind of group is it?