Human Library the prism Have you ever heard about Human Library or Living Library? It has become a new idea of reading. The Human Library is exactly a notion of reading to acquire knowledge by lending a person to talk with, and it has been popular worldwide since it was started in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was introduced into China in 2008. During the summer vacation, I was lucky to get the opportunity to experience it for myself. I listened to four stories told by my counselors about their experiences which really influenced me a lot. To me, the most impressive story must be the one told by Oscar from Norway. He told us about how he and his family moved to an outlying country then gradually accept a totally different culture, and how they achieved the acceptance by the natives. He also mentioned that once during his journey, he passed the slum. He looked out of the car window and saw a group of children of his age were living really hard lives. Everything there was different from his living place. He even couldn’t believe what he saw. Actually he was forbidden to go there at that time, so he has never been there again, but he just couldn’t forget the experience. Without the experience, maybe Oscar couldn’t realize that lives of people could be that different. What he shared also changed my views on the world. It is how Human Library works, not only offer the knowledge readers are curious about, but also to eliminate barriers between different people and cultures. At the same time, we can get the direct feeling of the storytellers that we can’t easily get from books. We listen to a story to learn a lesson, get to know a person, and experience a different life. All the storytellers are like a book, what they experienced shaped what they are like now. From Human Library we can find the contradictions of ourselves and also the society, even the world. Though it hasn't been successfully organized in China, I still prefer this type of learning for it gives us an idea of how the world is like, and reminds us what we should change. In my opinion, Human Library is like a prism. Through it, some people see the world on the other hand, while some see themselves.