Press enter after choosing selection
Graphic for events post

Blog Post

New title from author Fredrik Backman

by potterbee

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman has remained a popular title in the Hot Books collection over many months. His newest title, Beartown is due for release in just a few more days!

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

PreK Bits - "M" is for MOON

by ryanikoglu

This week at Malletts Creek Branch Ms. Rachel and Ms. Allison introduced stories "under the moon".
SLEEPYHEADS is a story of where to find all of the sleepyheads ...
For action and music with Ms. Banjo Betsy we played "Wake Up You Sleepyheads and Go and find the cattle!". It's a fast and slow action musical game.
JUST RIGHT For TWO is a sweet story of a new friendship.

For more stories with the moon in them:
OWL BABIES … When will Mama be home ?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOON … Phases of the moon with little Moon Bear.
IF YOU WERE THE MOON … What would you do?
LITTLE WOLF’s FIRST HOWLING … Watch for this one. It is on-order and has not arrived yet.
MOONCAKES …a story of Chinese Moon Festival.
The MOON INSIDE … Ella overcomes darkness at night.
ARMSTRONG:The Adventurous Journey Of A Mouse To The Moon … A long time ago a mouse learned to fly.
The MOON’s ALMOST HERE … Creatures make their ways home as the day is ending.
SUN And MOON … be careful what you wish for.
YOU BELONG HERE … A rhyming bedtime story pace with all things in their places and “You belong here with me.”
FULL MOON LORE ... each month described by a phrase based on the full moon. Lovely illustrations too!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Meet “It’s All Write!” 2017 Judge #8: Christian McKay Heidicker!

by BugsAndSlugs

The eighth judge for this year's “It’s All Write!” Teen Writing Contest and author of the 2016 debut novel Cure for the Common Universe is Christian McKay Heidicker. In this novel recommended for teen gamers and readers of Jesse Andrews and John Green, high school senior Jaxon is sent to rehab for his video game addiction on the eve of his first real date. Jaxon must earn enough points to graduate from the program in 4 days to preserve his date with Serena, or else be forced to recognize that his inability to connect with people can’t be blamed on video games, after all.

Learn more about Christian McKay Heidicker on his website and stay tuned for more information about “It’s All Write!” Teen Writing Contest 2017 Judges!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

New thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train: Into the Water

by eapearce

British author Paula Hawkins, who wrote the 2015 mega-bestseller The Girl on the Train, has penned another psychological thriller sure to delight readers. Into the Water will hit the shelves on May 2. In the novel, a single mother is found dead at the bottom of a river that runs through an English town. Earlier in the same summer, the body of a young teenage girl was also found at the bottom of the same river. And these are not the only women who have met their fate in this way. The most recent deaths dredge up secrets long kept underwater.

A young girl, whose mother was found dead in the river, is left alone, friendless and in the care of her mysterious aunt in the wake of the summer tragedy. As she and her aunt navigate their own demons, Hawkins unspools a gripping story of how the past can insert itself into the present, and of how deceptive memories can be. We know from The Girl on the Train that Hawkins is a master of demonstrating how slippery the truth is, and fans will certainly not be disappointed to see her do it again in Into the Water.

Best of all, Paula Hawkins will be visiting Ann Arbor on May 17, courtesy of Nicola’s Books! Attend a book discussion of The Girl on the Train prior to her visit at AADL on May 8.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Brilliant poetry by a Detroit writer / publisher / rock star

by JonesM

Sunlight Through Bullet Holes: POEMS (that will live) contains seven of Jessica Care Moore’s short collections. She is the youngest living Apollo Legend, first coming to national attention by winning the “It’s Showtime at the Apollo” competition a record-setting five times in a row. She has performed on Broadway, at Carnegie Hall, and at Lincoln Center, and she received the 2013 Alain Locke Award. She is CEO of Moore Black Press and Executive Producer of the outstanding Black WOMEN Rock! festival, and she lives and performs here in southeast Michigan.

Her poetry, much of it, cadences as if it were meant to be spoken aloud. Personal and political history, messages of love for children, self, and friends, tributes to musicians and poets, celebrations of Detroit culture and Blackness, and laments of loss and violence develop through breathtaking metaphors and surreal imagery. This is a beautiful, complex collection that's also enjoyable to read.

“I was born with stardust poems
& magic bones walking
inside stories of the children
of Bahia while drinking tears
I’ve swallowed whole in a torrential
Apartheid rain in the heart of Soweto.

I am fearless in this skin.”

Also by jessica Care moore
God Is Not An American: Poetry, Politics, & Love

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #634

by muffy

In Marlena * *, Julie Buntin's "(s)ensitive and smart and arrestingly beautiful debut" (Kirkus Reviews), 15 year-old Cathy (now calling herself Cat), arrived at Silver Lake, a small rural community in Northern Michigan with her newly divorced mother and older brother, determined to shed her good-girl image and reinvent herself, and was immediately drawn to the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena, her next door neighbor.

Over the course of the coming weeks, the girls turned the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground - skipping school, running feral as Marlena introduced Cat to a new world of drinking and pills and sex and also friendship, the depth of which neither girl has experienced before. Within the year, Marlena was dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby.

Decades later, Cat is married, and a New York City public librarian. She seemingly had move on, now enjoying a close relationship with her mother, until a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, forcing Cat to examine her role and "the pain at the utter core of me” in losing Marlena.

"The novel is poignant and unforgettable, a sustained eulogy for Marlena’s “glow... that lives in lost things, that sets apart the gone forever.” (Publishers Weekly)

"In this, Marlena joins a glut of recent novels that pair a retrospective female narrator with an extravagantly charismatic but troubled friend. Emma Cline’s novel The Girls loosely reimagines the Manson family murders from the perspective of a 14-year-old named Evie in 1969, who becomes besotted with an older teenager named Suzanne. Emily Bitto’s The Strays is recounted by Lily, a young Australian girl drawn into the 1930s bohemian family of her classmate, Eva. Like Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, these novels consider the fierce complexity of female friendship, and the particular agony of innocence that yearns to be shed. They examine the allure of danger from a space of safety: It’s inevitable which girl will careen toward catastrophe, and which girl will watch, wistfully, from the sidelines.” Read the full review in The Atlantic.

* * = 2 starred reviews

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

War in America

by Lucy S

Imagine that entire portions of this country have disappeared under water and that the use of fossil fuels has been outlawed in many states. And then imagine that these events have sparked a second civil war in the United States and that this war sets off a disastrous plague. This is the scenario created by Omar El Akkad in his debut novel, American War. El Akkad comes to fiction writing after many years as a journalist covering stories on the war in Afghanistan, military trials at Guantanamo Bay, the Arab Spring protests, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the effects of climate change along the southern coast of the US. His deep understanding of these real world conflicts seems to greatly inform and sustain American War. El Akkad brings us to the 2070s when the United States is embroiled in another civil war, brought about less by political differences or racial divides, than by climate and science, creating a refugee situation and a need to fight over remaining land. Fossil fuels are the biggest divider as the North no longer uses or allows them and the South won’t let them go. El Akkad’s plot seems entirely plausible given our present-day events. So much of what is in American War, biological warfare, drones, suicide bombs, torture, refugee camps, can be found in any source of news today.

While his book makes a strong commentary on current political, ecological, and social situations, at it’s heart the story really belongs to El Akkad’s main character, Sarat. We meet Sarat Chestnut as a 6 year old living in Louisiana and follow her through refugee camps, imprisonment and a life after the war set on revenge. In an interview in Bookpage, El Akkad said, “I never intended to write a book about America or war; I intended to write a book about the universality of revenge. I wanted to explore the idea that when people are broken by war, broken by injustice, broken by mistreatment, they become broken in the same way.”

The tragic events in Sarat's family life and the horrors of war that surround her entire existence leave her so thoroughly broken that she has no choice but to seek revenge. The question this powerful novel then asks is, how much revenge will be enough?

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Michigan Poets!

by potterbee

April is National Poetry Month! There is a wealth of poetry written by many authors from Michigan offered in AADL's catalog. Some items are available to download from the catalog to be enjoyed instantly! Trumbull Ave. by Michael Lauchlan and Weweni by Margaret Noodin are available to download and also in the traditional paper bound form.

Local book sellers Bookbound and Literati Bookstore have author events still to come this month with poets from Michigan.

On Thursday, April 20 at 7:00 pm award-winning Michigan poets Zilka Joseph and M.L. Liebler will be reading poems at Bookbound.

Ann Arbor author Zilka Joseph has an MFA in Poetry from University of Michigan, and she currently teaches workshops, works as a manuscript coach and editor, and mentors writers in the Ann Arbor community. She has written several books of poetry including her most recent, Sharp Blue Search of Flame

M.L. Liebler is an internationally-known Detroit poet, Wayne State University professor and literary arts activist who founded The National Writer's Voice Project in Detroit and the Springfed Arts: Metro Detroit Writers Literary Arts Organization. He has authored and edited numerous books including I Want to Be Once.

At Literati on April 21st, local poets Keith Taylor, Alison Swan, and Raymond McDaniel will be reading from their various collections, in addition to sharing some of their favorite poems, written by poets of the present and past. If the World Becomes So Bright by Keith Taylor is another instant pdf download available from the AADL catalog.

Search the catalog or the public lists to find more local poetry and enjoy a poem a day all month long!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

2017 “Write On!” Short Story Contest Winners!

by krayla

Congratulations to all of the writers in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade who participated in this year’s “Write On!” Contest. The judges enjoyed reading all of your stories- here are some of their comments:


“Color me impressed!”
“This has been so fun!! I loved reading all of them.”
“It was a pleasure to read these stories!”


This year’s contest results were announced today at the Final Celebration event featuring guest author Mark Crilley. Winners accepted their prizes and everyone received a certificate of participation. If you are a writer who couldn’t join us today, AADL will send your prize/certificate in the mail.

Thank you to all of this year’s writers, friends, family, and educators! Please email Kayla at youngwrite@aadl.org with any contest questions. Keep an eye out for next year’s writing contest, and as always, happy writing!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Storytimes: H is for Heart

by eapearce

This week at storytimes at Traverwood and Westgate, Elizabeth told stories with hearts in them! We heard about The Love-Me Bird, who has to change her call to find a mate, and saw zoo animals made out of hearts in the book My Heart is Like a Zoo. We also heard the brightly colored rhyme The Shape of My Heart and the gentle classic story A Kiss for Little Bear. And we got some love letters in the mail in a special Valentine’s rhyme (even though it’s April!).

AADL storytimes are intended for ages 2-5 and take place at all of our locations and are free and open to the public. For a full list of our storytimes visit our JUMP page, specifically for parents and teachers.