his Friday I volunteered to work for Bonnier Books of Sweden at the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair. It’s my first volunteering since I’ve graduated from high school. Of course there are big differences between the volunteering of high school and university. Instead of just doing something good, I can actually learn something from this thought-provoking book fair.

First of all, my oral English was practiced. It’s not good enough from my perspective, certainly, but at least I stopped being shy. Besides, it’s always a pleasure to find out that others can understand me. I mean, isn’t it the whole point of learning the language in the first place? Secondly, I got to meet those famous authors from Northern Europe in the flesh. I might outgrow my interest in children ’s books, yet they were still very cute to me, reminding me of my childhood with books. So it truly could be very touching to watch the great interaction between the authors and young audience. Familiar with children ‘s thoughts as they were, some questions from kids could still be boring or hard to understand. Yet they were as patient as I thought they could possibly be.

Apart from that, their life stories were inspiring as well. One of them started to write children ‘s stories just to distract his son’s attention from his little sister, so he would go to kindergarten without fighting and crying every weekday morning. That method was certainly more creative and effective than yelling and punishing. And Ms.  Noronen was so marvelous! She worked as author, TV play writer, reporter,comedian at the same time. Sure that was demanding, yet I couldn’t help but envy her. It is hard enough to find a job I like, let alone the fact that she has found so many!

Some other experiences also lightened my day. For instance, a lovely lady gave us a brief Swedish lesson using a cute picture book, as soon as she learned that we majored in Swedish. And this author from London, Mr. Zommer, asked me a favor to get a cab for him. Our contact was brief, yet it didn’t take long for me to find out how charming he was. He certainly was a typical British gentleman.

Nevertheless, not all the experiences were a delight. Although most of the kids present were well-taught and could behave themselves, the others could really be exhausting. Some drew on the desks and chairs even when there was paper in their hands, some left food on the floor and stepped it into scraps, and some left caps away from pens or even threw them around. As volunteers, it’s our responsibility to clean up and put everything in order, accepting the fact that it’s common for kids this age to act like this. It’s actually not as tiring as I thought when all the volunteers shared this responsibility. Sure my partners were great!

One-day thing as the volunteering was, I am sure it has more influence on me than I can realize. I'm looking forward to the next chance:)

The author is a student at the Department of Swedish Studies at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU).