“I” was in Ms. Rachel’s letter box, so Preschool Storytime was brought to you by the letter "i" and "insects". You can repeat one of the stories or explore related titles from the following:
Go To Sleep Gecko is an Indonesian folktale about ecology that begins with fireflies.
Tiny Little Fly and Old Black Fly ... they never catch the fly!
Sing "Ants Go Marching" and other songs with the 50 Silly Songs CD.
You can learn real information by browsing books from two very popular series:
Insect, which is a DK Eyewitness Book, and
Insects, which is a True Book.

Take a field trip to Traverwood Branch Library and view the glass case with Cecropia larvae munching on walnut leaves. This display is from the Leslie Nature Center.

YOU can access almost 1,000 digital music albums directly through our AADL.org catalog. Stream or download as much as you like, DRM free, on any device you choose. No waiting for a copy. No due dates. Hooray!

PUNK/METAL/HARD ROCK
The Napoleon Blown Aparts: Obnoxious High-Energy Rock
Biting guitars and gritty, pissed off rock vocals anyone? Yes please. According to frontman Ajax Garcia, “The Blown Aparts are a driving force of angst and teenage lust”. Check out their album Thrill Hype for a punked up Guns 'N Roses with a dash of The Dolls (See "Unlucky Star"). Ajax Garcia's voice sounds great on this album, and who can pass up a song called "Do you like my haircut?". Another highlight would be "Sonny", a totally unexpected combination of bongo drums and ebullient profanity.

CLASSICAL
Dufay Collective: Instrumental and Vocal Music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Music for the Spanish Court 1470-1520.
You’ve probably heard the Dufay Collective perform even if you think you haven’t. Their music is on the soundtrack of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Check out Cancionero, one of their best recordings to date. This collection of medieval repertoire spans the end of the 15th and the early 16th century, in what was Spain's golden age. The music comes from two main sources - the Cancionero Palacio containing songs and instrumental music from the court of Ferdinand and Isabella; and the manuscript Montecassino 871, associated with the Spanish court in Naples.

ELECTRONICA
Mokhov: Aphex Twin meets Four Tet
Halcyon Days is the début album of Oleg Mokhov, "the world's most mobile electronic musician" - his studio is a laptop in a backpack. His tunes are a cross between Aphex Twin and Four Tet, with some Boards of Canada and DJ Shadow thrown in. If you like that style of IDM/instrumental hip-hop/downtempo music, this album is for you. If you enjoy what you hear, be sure to check out some of his music videos.

WORLD
Gopal: Lend Your Heart to the Dilruba
The dilruba is a rare Indian Classical instrument with a meditative quality and a rich tapestry of sounds that touches the heart and relaxes the body-mind. This can be heard in Mystic Journey, an album that features the dilruba combined with other instruments such as Indian bansuri (bamboo flute), santoor and zither. Gopal's music is especially suited for soft movement, yoga, massage, healing, meditation, trance, relaxation or simply while falling asleep.

POP
Self Delusion: Darkly Addictive Electro-Pop Songs
Self Delusion's sound betrays them as big followers of 80s music. Think of Depeche Mode with a bit more depression and brilliant buzzy electronica melodies. What more can you say about an album titled Happiness Hurts Me?

Graveminder * (also available in audio ) is the first adult title by popular YA author Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely series).

Her grandmother Maylene's death brings Bek (Rebekkah) Barrow back to Claysville, a sleepy little town with strict rules how the dead are to be buried. Without a thought, Bek slips into performing the strange rituals at the gravesite that she has watched Maylene performed over the years: she takes three sips from a silver flask and speaks the words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."

Bek never suspects that with Maylene's passing, she is the new "graveminder", the next Barrow female to uphold the century-old contract between the worlds of the living and the dead. Worse yet, no one will tell her that Maylene was actually murdered, and danger is lurking in Claysville. The dead are hungry.

Byron Montgomery, the young Undertaker seems to be the only one who could help her set things right once the dead begin to walk, but he is also the last person Bek would want to involve considering their complicated past and the itchy spark between them that Bek is trying desperately to ignore.

"Haunting, captivating, brilliant!" Check out the author's website and Maylene's Scrapbook for the backstory of the graveminders. A nice cross-over for YA readers.

Want more creepy/chilling read this summer?

Try So Cold the River by Michael Koryta (in audio); Coffin County by Gary Braunbeck; and The Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltserman. Perfect to read around the campfire. Don't wander off though, and make sure someone's got your back.

* = Starred review

YOU can access almost 1,000 digital music albums directly through our AADL.org catalog. Stream or download as much as you like, DRM free, on any device you choose. No waiting for a copy. No due dates. Hooray!

HIP HOP/ELECTRONICA/RAP
A_Rival: Chip-Hop Defined...Electronic Rap at its Rawest
From Video Game music producer, composer, and performer A_Rival comes 8-Bit Pimp; the first full-length, Hip-Hop album of original music in which all tracks and beats were composed entirely using the sound chip of the Nintendo Entertainment System. A_Rival is bridging the gap between Hip-Hop and the up-and-coming Chiptune scene - an emerging music genre established in San Francisco among DJs, composers, producers, and musically-inclined fans of game music that seeks to push the boundaries of the art form.

WORLD/INDIAN
The RajDhani Quartet: Hindustani Classical meets Carnatik Music
Combining two great traditions of the subcontinent, The Gandhi Memorial Concert merges the improvisational and mystical nuances of Hindustani and Carnatik music. The result is a uniquely lilting form that meanders gently in a natural, even organic way. Delicately detailed circular patterns are overlayed with thoughtful, narrative melodies (there's even violin), and there are lots of little gem-like solos dispersed within the ensemble's playing. The album features India's foremost tabla player, Subhash Karmarkar, as well as Jay Kishor on sitar, Subhash Vinjamuri on violin, and Dr. P.K. Swaminathan on mridanagam. We particularly like this in the morning, while still warming up to the day.

CLASSICAL
Bezdin Ensemble: Chamber Orchestra, Choir and Vocalists Specializing in Sacred Music
In September 1703, Antonio Vivaldi became maestro di violino (master of violin) at an orphanage called the Pio Ospedale della Pietà (Devout Hospital of Mercy) in Venice. Over the next thirty years he composed many of his major works there. The Bezdin orphanage in Romania is a similar institution; its purpose is to give shelter and education to girls who were abandoned or orphaned, or whose families could not support them. The girls receive a musical education and the most talented stay and become members of the Bezdin ensemble choir or orchestra. Check out Vivaldi Fata Tiganca, "Vivaldi was a gypsy girl" in Romanian, or Vivaldi Sacred Box, commissioned for the Arad Christmas Concert of 2009.

METAL/PUNK/ROCK
Rebel Rebel: Glamtastic Hollywood Shock Rock
L.A.-based band Rebel Rebel is known for insanely fun, high energy live shows and has been known to give their fans "glamtasms" from the relentless insistence on entertainment and riff-heavy rock. Explode Into Space was produced by Brian Kehew, known for his work with The Ramones, Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, and Air. "Artificial Kid" and "Venus Plux X' are especially swaggery tunes. Bonus tracks in Spanish!

NEW AGE
Jami Sieber: Enchanting Cello Compositions
If you're in the mood to relax or reflect, you've found the right album. Characterized by an impeccably clear recording and spaciously produced arrangements, Hidden Sky is electric cellist Jami Sieber's deep and seamless musical meditation on her meeting with the elephants of Thailand and, like those animals, is both large in scope, yet profoundly tender and wise. Strings Magazine described the album as being full of "slowly unfolding romantic melodies voiced with the dense, dark timbre of Sieber's masterfully wielded instrument". "Sukhotai Rain" and "A Common Music" include sounds made by the Elephant Orchestra from the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Interested in more information about these amazing elephants? Check out this feature from National Geographic or this article from the New York Times archive.

Join us at the Downtown Library this Friday, July 15 at 7pm for the second Story Collider event to hit Ann Arbor. We loved what we heard at the last event so much we had to ask more storytellers in for stories about science in people's lives. This time around, listen to storytellers Ibrahima Bah, Allison Downey, Yvonne Healy, Jonathan Schwartz, Brian Wecht, and Brook Williams tell stories about "Fluctuations: Unexpected Turns and Curious Bumps."

If you want to learn more about Story Collider and how it came about, check out our podcast interview with host and co-creator Brian Wecht. And if you missed it in March, you can watch the last Story Collider event from AADL in our Video on Demand collection.

Story Collider: Fluctuations | Friday, July 15 | 7pm | Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Writing a second album must be like getting ready for a second date. You've played many of your most charming and best prepared cards on the first, and now there's a decision to make. Do you raise the ante and try to impress in new ways, or do you settle into your more comfortable self, hoping that your audience will like you for who you are, despite your faults?

Indie folkie Bon Iver's second LP, a self-titled 2011 release, takes the former approach, breaking out of the isolated, man-of-the-woods, Nick Drake inspired sound and morphing into the leader of a staggeringly huge band. The sheer number of instruments washes over the songs in tidal waves, often smothering parts that could have been fully fleshed song ideas in an effort to create vast, moving soundscapes. This is an album invested in evoking many somber emotions, rather than capturing singular human experiences, as Bon Iver had done on For Emma, Forever Ago and the follow up EP, Blood Bank.

Holocene, the best song on this album, is a bit clearer in its scenario -- guy finds himself in emotionally ennui, sees his relationships crumble, recognizes his own failings -- and the stunning chorus (one of the only songs that actually has one), succeeds because the setup makes sense. The best lyrics allow a listener to connect with the artist's experience and recognize something meaningful in his/her own life. Singer/songwriter Vernon has largely dismissed this notion here with lines like the word salad, "ramble in the roots, had the marvel, moved the proof be kneeled fine’s glowing storing up the clues" on the song, "Minnesota, WI".

Vernon impressively finds more range in his delivery on this record, not only in honing his falsetto and upper register (and dropping the vocoder), but in deepening the character of his voice spanning from honey to gravel to fit the song's tone. When Bon Iver collaborated with Kanye West on My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy, West praised Vernon's "fearlessness," a trait he puts to the test on this eponymous sophomore release.

YOU can access almost 1,000 digital music albums directly through our AADL.org catalog. Stream or download as much as you like, DRM free, on any device you choose. No waiting for a copy. No due dates. Hooray!

ALT ROCK
The Young Werewolves: Nippy Post-Punk Retro Rock with a Bite
While temptation, redemption and transformation always provide source material for The Young Werewolves, their latest album creeps across new musical ground and showcases the bands quest for sonic exploration and songwriting maturity. Twisting in unique ways, Sins of the Past is the follow up to the 2008 recording Cheat the Devil, produced by horror film star Sid Haig. In recent news, music from this Philadelphia-based trio was featured on Showtime Television in their series Shameless starring William H. Macy.

ELECTRONICA
Music Inside: Funky Bubbling Electronic Pop
With the album Silicon Sandwich, Music Inside opens doors to 10 different electronic worlds. This album will make you dance, close your eyes and scratch your head at times. Highlights include the pulsating beat of "No Time", the haunting atmosphere of "It Feels Like This", the love story of a robot and a spoon in "Curved Side Of The Spoon", and hunting man-eaters in "Cannibals", just to name a few. Silicon Sandwich is a digital musical trip of a different kind.

CLASSICAL
Canconier: Medieval Music from the 12th to the 15th Centuries
Cançonièr proudly presents The Black Dragon, 15th-century music from the time of the infamous Vlad the Impaler, whose tyrannical rule of Wallachia (Southern Romania) shocked Europe. The album features Michel Beheim's German poem about Vlad's deeds, French and Italian dance music, German songs, music of the Byzantine court, Balkan folk songs, Turkish classical music, the Lamentation for the Fall of Constantinople by Guillaume Dufay, and more.

ALT ROCK
She Said Save Me: Gimmick Free, Pure Acousto-Folk
She Said Save Me's debut self-titled album is a sincere, inspiring, and heart-warming experience straight from the heart of singer-songwriter Joe Vercillo. Recorded in the attic of a home in Toronto, the raw and pure sound sticks to Vercillo's life motto of keeping it simple and keeping it real. A mix between Acoustic, Folk, Punk, and Pop, all songs possess an extremely intimate, soothing and uplifting feel. Although most lyrics deal with the difficulties of life and relationships, Vercillo's main message in the album is that you can make anything into a good thing.

CLASSICAL
Willem Brons: Mozart Works by a Distinguished Master Pianist
On this highly acclaimed album, Dutch pianist Willem Brons plays beloved piano works of Mozart. Listen to The Rondo in A minor, with its wealth of intentions and feelings, and the Sonata in F major, in which Mozart links deep emotions to an inexhaustible fantasy. The Fantasie in C minor provides an impressive introduction to the previously composed Sonata K. 457, as there are numerous connections between both works. The sonata is majestic and, especially in the first and last movements, distinctly dramatic. Simply put, this album is beautiful.

If you liked the DVD documentary Buena Vista Social Club with Ry Cooder looking for lost songs and forgotten singers in Cuba, you may also like the following DVD documentaries, which include original music and personalities:
Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus finds talent and personalities deep in the southern bayous and back-country hollows,... where you can also learn the recipe for moonshine.
El Sistema: Music To Change Life offers a look at Venezuelan visionary Jose Antonio Abreu making world-class musicians out of children from the slums of Caracas.
Young @ Heart follows final concert preparations of the Young @ Heart Chorus in Massachusetts where the average age of members is 81.
and Afghan Star an Afghan television program airing since 2005 .... millions tuning in to Tolo TV's wildly popular American idol-style series. The contest is open to everyone across the country despite gender, and ethnicity.
Search the catalog for more music documentaries.
There's music everywhere!

If you enjoy a leisurely afternoon browsing in antique shops, or find yourself searching out flea markets in your travels, then I think you will find a little treasure here. 13, rue Thérèse came out earlier this year but I waited for the audio book, and I was not disappointed. Jefferson Mays and Mia Barron did an amazing job bringing drama and breathing life into this recording of Elena Mauli Shapiro's debut novel.

Trevor Stratton, an American academic working in Paris is fascinated with a box of personal artifacts found in a filing cabinet in his new office. Sorting through the photographs, postcards, handkerchief, letters, and other vintage keepsakes that once belonged to a woman named Louise Brunet, Trevor begins to imagine and invent a life for her at 13, rue Therese, Paris, - from losing a young lover on the WWI battlefield, a marriage to someone of her father's choosing, to a daring and passionate affair with a married neighbor.

As Louise's life takes shape in Trevor's mind, he begins to notice Josianne, one of the young secretaries, and her eerie connection to the box. Trevor is intrigued and must find out why.

Elena Mauli Shapiro was born and raised in Paris, France, in an apartment below the real-life Louise Brunet’s. Shapiro found herself in possession of a box of Louise’s keepsakes after her neighbor died. They became the inspiration for the novel. See the real artifacts online at the book's website.

Joyce Saricks, Readers Advisory guru, focused her attention recently on the Unexpected Pleasures of audiobooks. I especially enjoy listening to translated works or works set in exotic locales. I often find them impromptu language lessons, with a bit of serendipitous armchair-traveling thrown in. 13 rue Therese was a real find.

YOU can access almost 1,000 digital music albums directly through our AADL.org catalog. Stream or download as much as you like, DRM free, on any device you choose. No waiting for a copy. No due dates. Hooray!

POP / ROCK
Sun Palace: Gossamer Folk-Rock
Angel-voiced Andriette Redmann teams up with Smithereens frontman John Rokosny to make a luxuriant, yet lighter than air, pop-rock creation. Give Me A Perfect World is an impressive demonstration of Redmann's talents, which have been compared to Sarah McLachlan and The Sundays. Highlights include the idyllic title track, the courtly and fateful "Round and Round," as well as the deeply dreamy "Familiar Voices." This album features legendary drummer Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel/Paul McCartney/Elvis Costello) and cellist Jane Scarpantoni (Springsteen/Lou Reed/REM). Highly expressive, highly listenable.

CLASSICAL
Wildcat Viols: Viola da Gamba Girls Gone Wild
The San Francisco ensemble Wildcat Viols mines the richest vein of the viol da gamba consort repertoire. On Fairest Isle you'll hear the astounding music of Henry Purcell and Matthew Locke, the last great masters of English viol music. In this, their debut recording, the three women of Wildcat Viols, occasionally joining forces with the delicious soprano voice of Catherine Webster, luxuriate in the daring and passionate sound-world of 17th-century England. By turns quirky, languid, exuberant, sensuous, virtuosic, and always sublime, this music represents the final flowering of England's remarkable viol ensemble repertoire, in which finely-crafted Renaissance equanimity gives way to the dramatic volatility of the Baroque - with a distinctively British accent.

ELECTRONICA
Osamu Kitajima and Chris Mancinelli : Pan Pacific Ambient Dance Masters
The pulse of captivating and ear-catching dance rhythms forms the foundation for these hauntingly melodic and evocative soundscapes. The compositions are expertly balanced by an intricate interlacing of ancient Japanese instruments and singing. Beyond the Circle is a masterful melding of the latest electronic textures with the most spiritual of Asian musical history. This upbeat music features vocalist Nanako Mikado singing traditional Geisha songs, the expressive playing of shakuhachi master Masakazu Yoshizawa, and WILCO guitar legend Nels Cline.

WORLD
Anamar: Songs with a Latin & Afro mood, blended with Tango, Milonga, Morna, Rumba, Habanera
Transfado comes from a cult figure in the Portuguese music scene. Simple acoustic accompaniment on piano, double bass and Portuguese guitar puts Anamar's smoky, passionate voice in the best possible light, in songs that are vibrant, sultry, emotive, and cathartic. Fado songs are defined by their feeling of "saudade," a Portuguese term best translated as a genuine and intense yearning. Transfado has yearning to burn, but it's also a deeply sophisticated work with unexpected melodies and profound warmth.

NEW AGE
Harlan Williams : Beautiful Dark and Airy Guitar
The compositions on The Glass Desert are instrumental and range in moods from ambient and celestial to darkened and tragic, always with a layering of harmonies and an intricate structure. The writings are usually in minor key and can sometimes end up gothic sounding. The style is very unlike traditional classical guitar music, using multiple instrument parts, elaborate arrangements, and unusual timings. All of the song titles on this recording are found somewhere in the scope of Christian history or directly in the Bible itself. For example, "In Nomine Domini" is Latin for "In the Name of the Lord", "Gregory IX" was the pope who instituted the inquisition, and "The Limb of the Fiend" is a 16th century reference to "The Arm of Satan".

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