A long time ago, two children lived near a big forest. The boy"s name was Hansel. His sister"s name was Gretel. The children"s father, Hans, was a woodcutter. He cut down trees in the forest and made beautiful toys and furniture , bowls and boxes. He sold them in the market. He worked every hard. Hansel and Gretel helped their mother, Greta, in the house and garden. They were poor but they were happy. One day Greta died. "On dear!" said Hans. "Now my children have no mother!" he was very sad. One day Hans met a woman in the market. Her name was Anna. After a short time , Hans asked Anna, "Will you marry me?" "Yes!" answered Anna. Soon they were married. "This is your new mother," said Hans to the children. Anna was nice to Hansel and Gretel when Hans was at home, but she often hit them when Hans was at work. They tried to tell Hans but he did not want to listen to them. Hansel and Gretel were very sad. One night the children were in bed. They heard Anna"s angry voice in the kitchen. "They"re bad, naughty children," she said. "And we haven"t got enough food for them to eat. Hans, you must leave them in the middle of the forest. " "No, I can"t They are my children," said Hans. Anna cried and shouted, "But I don"t like them!" Han was tried. "Oh, all right," he said. "I"ll leave them in the forest tomorrow. Now be quite. I want to sleep." Hansel and Gretel were very afraid. Then Hansel had a clever idea. The next morning, he got up at five o"clock and went outside. He collected a lot of small withe stones and put them in his pocket. Then he went back to bed. "Wale up, children!" called Anna at seven o"clock. "You"re going to go to the forest with your father today." The children followed their father into the big forest. Every few minutes, Hansel took a stone out of his packet and dropped it on the ground. They walked and walked. Now they were in the middle of the forest. Hans said. "Pick some beautiful flowers for Anna. I"m going to cut down some trees. I"ll come back soon." Then he went away. "Now we"re lost!" said Gretel. "No, we aren"t," said Hansel. "Look! I dropped a white stone every few minutes. We can follow them, and we"ll find our house." The children followed the stones through the big, dark forest. Soon they were at home again. Anna was very angry when she saw them. That night, Anna shouted at Hans again. The next morning, Hansel got up at five o"clock. He wanted to find some more white stones but the door was locked. He saw some bread on the table so he put some in his pocket. Hans took the children into the forest again. Every few minutes Hansel dropped a small piece of bread on the ground. Soon Hans and the children were in the middle of the forest. Then Hans went away. Hansel looked at the ground. There was no bread. "Some birds ate the bread," shouted Gretel. The children were lost! Soon the children saw a beautiful house. The walls were made of cake. The roof was made of chocolate. The door and windows were made of biscuits and sweets. The door opened. An old woman came out . " Come inside ." she said. Hansel and Gretel followed her into the house. The old woman locked the door. She pushed Hansel into a cage and locked it with a big black lock. "I"m going to cook you and eat you, but you aren"t fat enough yet !" she said. She looked at Gretel. "And you can do all the work in the house." The old woman gave Hansel lots of good food, for example , chicken, meat, cheese, and milk. Every day she said, "Are you fat enough to eat yet ? Let me feel your finger" But Hansel always gave her a chicken bone to feel. "You"re too thin," said the old woman, and she gave him some more food. One morning the old woman became angry. "Why aren"t you fat yet ?" she shouted. "I"m very hungry. I"m going to cook you today!" She shouted to Gretel, "Go and fetch some wood and make a fire under the oven ." Gretel wanted to run away but she also wanted to help Hansel. So she went back to old woman"s house with some wood. She made a fire under the oven. "Now," said the old woman, "Is the oven hot enough?" "I don"t know," said Gretel. "Open the oven door and feel inside," said the old woman. "How?" asked Gretel. "Let me (to) show you," said the old woman. She opened the door of the oven and put her head inside. Quickly, Gretel pushed the old woman into the oven. The key of the cage fell out of her pocket. Gretel closed the door of the oven. Gretel picked up the key. She opened the cage quickly. "Thank you!" said Hansel. "You"re very clever." Then Hansel saw a big box under the table. They opened it and found a lot of gold inside. "Let"s go home and give the gold to Dad!" said Hansel. Hansel put the gold in a big bag. He carried the bag on his shoulder. Then they ran out of the old woman"s house and walked through the forest. The sun was in the sky. There was light in the forest so Hansel and Gretel were not afraid. They walked and walked, then they met a woodcutter. "Can you help us, please?" they asked. "We"re lost." The woodcutter walked through the forest with them and helped them to find their house. Hans was in the garden. He looked sad. He saw the children and shouted, "Hansel! Gretel!" he ran to them and put his arms round them. "Where"s Anna?" asked Gretel. "Anna died last week," said Hans. Hansel and Gretel told their father about the old woman and her house, the cage, the bone and the big oven. Then they opened the bag and showed Hans the gold. "We"ll never be poor again!" said Hans. A forest is a large piece of land with a lot of trees. There are different kinds of forests all over the world. In some places there are different seasons in a year. The trees in the forests in these places usually have large leaves. They use sunlight and water to make food for the tree in the summer. In the autumn, the green leaves change to yellow, orange, rad or brown and fall off the trees. In the winter the trees are bare . Then, in the spring new leaves grow again. In some forests trees are never bare. Leaves do not fall off the trees every year. The threes are always green so we call these forests evergreen forests. These forests are in cold countries with long winters and short summers. Trees in these forests do not need much sunlight. They have needle-shaped leaves. The largest evergreen forest is in Siberia. It is eleven million square kilometres. Some forests are in hot, wet places near the equator . These places have no summer or winter. It is hot all the time . There is always a lot of sunlight and a lot of rain so people call these forests rain forests . The largest rain forest in the world is in South America. It is 6.5 million square kilometers. There are many, many trees and flowers in a rain forest" Many beautiful animals and insects live there, for example, frogs, orangutans, monkeys, snakes and lizards . There are thousands of birds, too. A train forest is a very noisy place! People live in rain forest, too. They know a lot about animals and plants. They collect fruit, roots nuts and other parts of plant to eat. They also catch animals for food. Some people make medicines from plants. Some people cut down the trees to make farms but they do not plant any new trees. Many birds, animals and insects die because they have nowhere to live. Some people do not live in rain forests but they go to rain forests to cut down the trees and sell the wood to make money. Rain forests are very important because many things come from them, for example. wood, bananas, coffee and nuts. But our forests are in danger because people are cutting down too many trees every year. When there are no more trees in a forest and the animals eat the grass and the small plants, the forest becomes a desert. This is a desert. Deserts are very dry places. There are mountains, rocks and sand in deserts. Deserts get very little rain. There are deserts in hot places like Africa and in places like the northern part of China, too. It is very hot during the day and very cold at the night in a desert. There are plants in deserts. Most plants in deserts need very little water to grow. Cacti grow in deserts. They keep water in their thick stems . They have no leaves but (they have ) tiny spines so they do not lose water easily. Animals and insects live in deserts, too. Some of them sleep during the day because it is too hot, and come out to find food at night. Camels are the largest animals in deserts. They have thick fur to keep them cool during the day and (to keep them ) warm at night. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world. It is in many countries in Africa. Trees are very important. They are the homes of many birds and animals. They give us food, for example, fruit and nuts. People make different things from trees, for example, paper. How do you find out the age of a tree? Every year the tree grows a little and a ring grows round the trunk of the tree. When people cut down the tree, you can count the number of rings in the truck to tell the age of the tree. In 1964 a woodcutter cut down a tree and counted 4,900 rings inside the tree! Today the tallest tree in the world is a redwood tree in the United States of America. It is 112 meters tall. The smallest trees in the world do not grow in forests. They are bonsai trees. Some bonsai trees are very old, and all bonsai trees are very small. Their leaves and fruit are small, too. People plant bonsai trees in very small trays and do not give them much water. The trees do not die but they grow very slowly.
2023-07-12 18:20:141
陶小凡
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