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When you visit a library, the books are all arranged according to categories. It makes the job of finding what you want so much easier than having all the books just loaded on the shelves randomly.

Similarly with online bookstores, books and eBooks are organized according to classification. All the mystery stories are in one section, all the suspense thrillers are together, all the sweet romances are together. That’s how Amazon does it. Barnes and Noble too. In fact, all the digital book sellers use a classification system that groups similar books all together.

The classification categories are based on what readers want, and what readers look for. Businesses exist to meet the needs of the market place, so if the buying public want something, it will be made available by some enterprising business.

Take murder mysteries for example. Knowing that the reading public loves to read murder stories, many writers have specialized in that genre. Often the reader comes across descriptions of brutal murders. The more shocking these acts are, the stronger the audience reaction will often be.

There are other writers who choose not to write such gory stories. They may deal with a murder or a sexual attack but without highlighting the violence, suffering or horror. It’s a tragic fact that human beings around the world violate each other every day, but there are writers who may or may not include such terrible things in their stories, but if they do the evils are mentioned briefly.

They choose to write stories without violence. Or if a violent act is included in their story, it is not dwelt on in any blowby- blow way. It is not glorified.The reader will know that somebody was murdered but they won’t be struggling with mental pictures of the evil.

This is what clean fiction is about. Or more accurately, this is part of the ethos adopted by authors of clean fiction. As H.L. Wegley says of his stories, “descriptions and events will never be gross, graphic, or gratuitous.” He writes inspirational thrillers and highaction romantic suspense novels.

Clean fiction is not so much a book category but a description of the author’s writing. So clean fiction includes romance, suspense, mysteries, thrillers... even time travel. Pretty much any genre can be written in a clean way.

(1) In an earthquake, huge masses of rock move beneath the earth’s surface and cause the ground to shake. Earthquakes occur constantly around the world. Often, they are too small for people to feel at all. Sometimes, however, earthquakes cause great loss of life and property. Most earthquakes are caused by changes in the earth’s outermost shell, or crust.

(2) The crust is made up of about a dozen rock masses called plates that are constantly moving. In different places, they move apart, collide, or slide past each other. Over time this movement causes great pressure to build up. When the pressure becomes too great, the rock masses suddenly shift along a crack in the crust, called a fault. The shifting rocks release energy in the form of shock waves. The waves spread through the rocks in all directions, causing an earthquake.

(3) A small number of earthquakes have other natural or human causes. The movement of molten rock beneath a volcano can trigger an earthquake. The pressure resulting from holding vast amounts of water behind large dams can cause minor quakes. So can underground nuclear explosions and the digging of mines.

(4) An earthquake may be powerful enough to change the surface of the Earth, thrusting up cliffs and opening huge cracks in the ground. Earthquakes can do great damage to buildings, bridges, railroads, and other structures. The violent shaking during earthquakes often causes other earth movements, such as avalanches. Some quakes that happen in or near oceans cause huge, destructive waves called tsunamis to sweep ashore.

(5) Scientists record the shock waves produced in an earthquake with an instrument called a seismograph. They measure the strength of a quake in different ways. The Richter scale measures earthquakes based on the amount of energy they release. The weakest earthquakes are close to zero on the scale, and the strongest measure about 9. The Mercalli scale measures the amount of destruction caused by an earthquake on a scale of 1 to 12.

We all make spontaneous hand movements, called gestures, when we talk. These cospeech gestures are produced in rhythm with our speech and are related to the meaning of what we are saying. For example, when talking about attending a piano recital, you might move your fingers right and left in front of you to illustrate what playing a piano looks like.

There are several different types of gestures that serve different purposes. Some gestures describe objects or actions, like the piano example above. These are called iconic gestures, because they create a picture. Sometimes our gestures do not make pictures, but they move in rhythm with our speech. These are called beat gestures, because they follow the beat of our speech. For example, you might flick both wrists downward when saying the word amazing in the following sentence: "The recital was amazing." These gestures can help the speaker emphasise certain words.

Hand gestures are not just hand waving. Gestures can also enhance learning in children who view and make them. Children's gestures reveal when they are on the cusp of understanding a new concept. An important unanswered question that scientists are still trying to figure out is how? How do gestures help learning? Even though we do not yet have an answer to this, scientists have some ideas. One possibility is that gestures offer a visual way to communicate ideas that can complement what children hear or say with spoken language. Instead of just hearing something in speech, children get to see it as well.

Another possibility is that gestures help children focus their attention on the most important points of what is being learned, at exactly the right time. Gestures increase the chance that the children will know exactly which part of the equation the teacher is talking about. Finally, it is also possible that gestures help memory by engaging more parts of the brain. Gesturing engages the motor parts of the brain in addition to the parts of the brain already active for producing language. Engagement of multiple brain areas may lead to better, deeper learning.

Gestures come along for free with our speech and can play a critical role in helping children learn. By continuing to study gestures, we will better understand how we can help children learn.