If anyone knows what makes a great children's book，it must be Sussex author and illustrator（插图画家）Jane Hissey. Her "Old Bear" books have achieved classic status in a variety of formats.

I met Jane at her home in the East Sussex countryside and asked her what she thought the secret of a classic children's book was. "That's a difficult one, I suppose it has got to be related to children's stage of development-for young children, pictures on a page that are familiar; for older children, an experience. The book should be familiar, but hold some surprises too to keep the interest. It must inspire and delight them, but there are the things that happen every day."

After the birth of her first child, she gave up teaching and worked on her own artwork, drawing pictures of teddy bears. An editor from a publishing company saw her work and invited Jane to do a children's book. Over the years, from the first "Old Bear" book in 1986, her children have made a huge contribution-especially in terms of plots. She said, "I used to give my children the toys to play with-and they had tea parties and so on. One of my bear characters,' Little Bear', is the same age as Ralph, my youngest, who's seven now. All the children have joined in my work and, in years to come, they will realize how much."

"I hope I'll know when people are getting tired of the characters. If ever they did, I think I'd go on drawing them for fun," Jane continued. "My own children have been very useful to me in my work, but as they are older now, I' ll just have to hope that other people's children can inspire me."

Growing Pains 104

   For about three years, I have been writing poetry. It was not until my junior year in high school that I developed an interest, love and skill in writing poetry.

Back in elementary school, I _____ to write stories. I would write stories on Post-it notes and anywhere I could. ____ , when I had to write a limerick (五行打油诗) for a _____ , I could not wrap my head around poetry. I had a very hard time figuring out how to _____ words and have the words make sense. ____, I tossed the paper with the _____ limerick into the trash. I did not try my _____ at poetry again until several years later.

In my freshman year of high school, my English teacher _____ a poetry project as a task. I still _____ my limerick task in elementary school and was ______ of doing the poetry project. For the project, we had to______ a poem and write a comment on it. I chose to ______ on Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice. I also wrote my own first poem. I became really ______ when writing the poem.

Two years later, I ______ writing poetry as a hobby and for fun. To ______ how good or bad my poems were, I handed them in to some magazines and ______ . I won second place in the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Sherry Pruitt Award Contest with a poem called The Ocean, and had my two poems ______ as high-merit poems. I have ______ to write poetry, and have even self-published three collections of poetry in both print and e-book formats (版式).

Now, I love writing poetry,______ I don’t hate writing short stories. I just find it more ______ and not my style of writing, though I still write short stories occasionally.