Stories For You

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the Weekly Star! This space is for the weekly stories and other creative things that kids send us.  Check out this space every week for new stories, articles, drawings by kids from all over the world!

Hope you enjoy!

The Editor

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Half Man - Half Price Store 

~The Story of Peng Shuilin 

In life we keep complaining about what is or why we don't have.

Half the time we seem dissatisfied, though full-bodied and free to choose. Fat people say,"I want to be slim."

Skinny people say, "I want to be fatter."

Poor people want to be rich and rich are never satisfied with what they have.

PENG Shuilin is 78cms high. He was born in Hunan Province , China ...

In 1995, in Shenzhen, a freight truck sliced his body in half.

His lower body and legs were beyond repair.

Surgeons sewed up his torso.

Peng Shuilin, 37, spent nearly two years in hospital in Shenzhen, southern China,

undergoing a series of operations to re-route nearly every major organ or system inside his body.

Peng kept exercising his arms, building up strength, washing his face and brushing his teeth.

He survived against all odds.

Now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again after a decade. 

Considering Peng's plight, doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing devised an

ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own, creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold
his body, with two bionic legs attached.

It took careful consideration, skilled measurement and technical expertise.

Peng has been walking the corridors of Beijing Rehabilitation Centre with the aid of his specially

adapted legs and a re-sized walking frame.

RGO is a recipicating gait orthosis, attached to a prosthetic socket bucket.

There is a cable attached to both legs so when one goes forward, the other goes backwards.

Rock to the side, add a bit of a twist and the leg without the weight on it advances, while the other

one stays still, giving a highly inefficient way of ambulation.

" Oh so satisfying to 'walk' again after ten years with half a body!"
Hospital vice-president Lin Liu said: "We've just given him a checkup; he is fitter than most men his age."

Peng Shuilin has opened his own bargain supermarket, called the Half Man-Half Price Store.

The inspirational 37-year-old has become a businessman and is used as a role model for other amputees.

At just 2ft 7ins tall, he moves around in a wheelchair giving lectures on recovery from disability.

His attitude is amazing, he doesn't complain.

"He had good care, but his secret is cheerfulness. Nothing ever gets him down."

You have a whole body. You have feet. Now you have met a man who has no feet.

His life is a feat of endurance, a triumph of the human spirit in overcoming extreme adversity.

Next time you want to complain about something trivial, don't. Remember Peng Shulin instead. 

Life Is a Gift 

Today before you say an unkind word - 

Think of someone who can't speak. 

Before you complain about the taste of your food - 

Think of someone who has nothing to eat. 

Before you complain about your husband or wife - 

Think of someone who's crying out to GOD for a companion.

Today before you complain about life - 

Think of someone who went too early to heaven. 

Before whining about the distance you drive 

Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet. 

And when you are tired and complain about your job - 

Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job. 

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - 

Put a smile on your face and think: 

you ' re alive and still around. 

Happiness is not so much in having as sharing.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

~Anonymous

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              A True Story...

After the Earthquake had subsided, when the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house, they saw her dead body through the cracks. But her pose was somehow strange that she knelt on her knees like a person was worshiping; her body was leaning forward, and her two hands were supporting by an object. The collapsed house had crashed her back and her head.


With so many difficulties, the leader of the rescuer team put his hand through a narrow gap on the wall to reach the woman’s body. He was hoping that this woman could be still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away for sure.

He and the rest of the team left this house and were going to search the next collapsed building. For some reasons, the team leader was driven by a compelling force to go back to the ruin house of the dead woman. Again, he knelt down and used his had through the narrow cracks to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with excitement,” A child! There is a child! “


The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a 3 months old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under his mother’s dead body. Obviously, the woman had made an ultimate sacrifice for saving her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.


The medical doctor came quickly to exam the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cell phone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen.

"If you can survive,

you must remember that I love you.”

This cell phone was passing around from one hand to another.
Every body that read the message wept.
Such is the mother’s love for her child!  

                   

"Mother" is such a simple word,
But to me there’s meaning seldom heard.
For everything I am today,
My mother’s love showed me the way.

                                        For enriching my life in so many ways
                                       I’ll love my mother all my days,



                             She set me straight and then set me free,
             And that’s what the word "mother" means to me.

                                                     

                              --By Karl Fuchs
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The Rose

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.
I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.She said, 'Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?' I laughed and enthusiastically responded, 'Of course you may!' and she gave me a giant squeeze.'Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?' I asked. She jokingly replied, 'I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids.'.'No seriously,' I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
'I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!' she told me.After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this 'time machine' as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, 'I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know. 'As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, ' We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it! There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.Anybody! Can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets..'She concluded her speech by courageously singing 'The Rose.'
She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those months ago.
One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.
Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.
REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get. We make a Life by what we give.God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Sent by--
Anonymous

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THE DREAM

by: Shruti Chakraborty, Class 6, La Martiniere for Girls, India

  It was a hot, windy  night. At least I thought so. People like aunt Norris would tell you that I was just imagining and that it was a freezing night. My parents are private detectives. So you see, when they suddenly had to run off to an unknown island, I was packaged to aunt Norris.

 Aunt Norris had already gone to sleep after watching her daily routine of programs on the TV and I could hear her snoring from her room. But it seemed like my eyes would never shut. I think it was because of this weird thought that kept popping in my mind. It was as if the songs of the winds had a message for me, but… I just couldn’t get what their song meant. My head felt heavy and I was so confused about my weird thoughts, I think my eyes had finally shut, but not for long…

I woke up with a violent jump...I had had many nightmares before this, but the short film my eyes had met within the few seconds I had shut my eyes was truly horrible! People running, shouting for help, babies wailing and the worst, deadly fire hurling at the people like a giant monster! 
 I calmed myself down and tried to go back to sleep again, but as soon as I tried to go back to sleep, the sight would appear back again, but this time the clouds of smoke would turn into faces which appeared to be calling to me. I just could not bear it and opened my eyes trying not to sleep.
That is when the odd thing happened. As I lay on my bed, I suddenly felt that my room was full of smoke and what’s more? I could hear people I wailing and shouting! I ran to the window…and what I saw was astonishing. There in front of me lay the horrible sight I had seen in my dream, but the only difference was that this was reality! 

 I suddenly felt an impulse of bravery. I ran down in my pajamas onto the streets trying to save as many people as I can. Pulling babies out of gutters and animals out of sheds. Soon I heard a loud siren. “The Police” I gasped with enjoyment. I finally went back home exhausted and sleepy after my great adventure.  The next day I was informed by the police officers that all the people had been saved.The also told me that  I would be awarded for  being so brave at such a time of need. Many newspapers and news channels came to interview me but I didn’t tell them about the dream, in case they thought me to be mad. But it still did confuse me…