Blog Post
Future Warfare
by RiponGood
Drones are now a part of the modern day battlefield. In the future, robot warriors make take the field in the place of their human counter-parts. In Bolo and Old Soldiers author David Weber continues the works of Keith Laumer describing future warzones. Bolos are gigantic robot battle tanks. The tanks are programmed with artificial intelligence which is designed to serve and protect humans throughout the galaxy. Check these books out to see what might happen in mankind's future.
Blog Post
Story Bits - Snow
by ryanikoglu
Warm-up winter with these snowy stories. Kumak's House; All You Need For A Snowman; Ezra Jack Keats' classic Snowy Day; and Stranger In The Woods ... perhaps as satisfying as hot cocoa with marshmallows.
Blog Post
Childrens Classics
by ErinDurrett
Recently, a patron asked me to put a hold on a book I haven't heard of in years. As soon as she asked for the title I thought "Hey I remember that book from when I was a kid." So I put a hold on it and a week later, "Surprise!" it was ready to be picked up. I've only read a couple chapters of Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell, but already I feel at home in the story. For those of you who have not read the book, it is a the tale of a young girl Karana, who loses her family and village and has to live on her own, surviving with the skills she's learned and off the resources of the island. This book has inspired me to read some of my other favorite childhood books that I also recommend: Zia, The Giver, Julie of the Wolves, Julie, The Call of the Wild and last but not least The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (which is actually being made into a movie) These are great reads for older kids and adults alike! I hope this inspires you to go back and reread some of your childhood favorites!
Blog Post
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
by annevm
Oh! A new Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book is out, Happy Birthday Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle from Betty MacDonald, who died in 1958, and her daughter Anne MacDonald Canham, who apparently found an unpublished Mrs. PW story and notes among her mother's things. This release is particularly exciting for those of us who grew up hearing and reading Mrs. PW stories of modifying children’s behavior in highly imaginative, sometimes very creepy ways, such as The Radish Cure in Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. The new book is the first new Mrs. PW book in 50 years.
Blog Post
Saint Patrick's Day!
by jaegerla
is coming up on the seventeenth! This year's annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in Detroit will be the city's fiftieth! You can learn more about the origins of the holiday by reading The Wearing of the Green: a History of Saint Patrick's Day, Shamrock's Harps, and Shillelaghs: The Story of the Saint Patrick's Day Symbols, and biographies on St. Patrick. A fun idea for a day of celebration would be to check out the Hellenic Cultural Center in Westland for a day of Irish music, Irish food, and Irish entertainment.
Blog Post
Join the Ann Arbor Family Day Fun!
by StoryLaura
In conjunction with Ann Arbor Family Days, Pornrat Damrhung, Professor of Dramatic Arts at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and Charley Sullivan of the UM Center for Southeast Asian Studies, will lead simple Cambodian and Thai classical dance for the whole family. We will also be coloring dramatic masks. Keep an eye out for the Lunar New Year's Lion Dance! Follow the Lion as it dances along the sidewalk from AADL to the Main St. area.
Join the fun this Saturday, March 8 from 10-11 a.m.
Blog Post
When Harriet Met Sojourner by Catherine Clinton
by Tahira
Find out what might have happened when two of America's most famous women, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth met for the first time in When Harriet met Sojouner. Told in alternate biographical pages Catherine Clinton explores the lives of these great women and the day their lives intercepted.
Blog Post
Good Reads
by jaegerla
Want to compare notes with friends on what you think of the books you have read? You can share your literary critiques at Good Reads. This is a fun way to connect with people you know through expressing your opinions on your past reads. It's also a great way to look for ideas for books you would like to check out in the future, as you can peruse other peoples' lists. If you are interested in professional literary criticism, the library has access to critique databases (located in our Research Tab), including the Literature Resource Center, Novelist, and What Do I Read Next? And, if you enjoy sharing your thoughts on what you're reading, remember that you can rate books right here on the library's website!
Blog Post
Truthiness: Faux Memoires
by Van
Four copies of Love and Consequences: a Memoir of Hope and Survival by Margaret B. Jones made it into the collection before the publisher’s recall got them. The author detailed her life growing up as a foster child with Big Mom in the LA ghetto, running drugs. Kirkus Reviews praised the “hardened voice of experience, steely and honest.” Library Journal thought “this conversationally written, exquisitely detailed book is as close to a living experience of the American ghetto as one can get.”
Her real-life sister called the publisher when she found out about the book. Margaret B. Jones was not a foster child, not part American Indian, and did not run drugs for a gang. Margaret Seltzer is actually all white, raised by her natural parents, and went to an Episcopal high school in North Hollywood.
There are eight holds on the library’s copies. We will recatalog the book as Fiction once the holds list has been exhausted.
The library does not own the other fictional memoir in the news this week. Misha: a Memoire of the Holocaust Years, by Misha Defonseca, has been translated into eighteen languages and made into a movie. Misha Defonseca (Monique De Wael) turns out not to be Jewish, not to have been trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, not adopted by wolves, and did not kill a German soldier in self-defense. Her parents were murdered by the Nazis. If you would like to read a memoir of the Holocaust, the library has many excellent choices.
Blog Post
The underlying rationality of your irrationality
by remnil
Irrationality is big these days. First came Tim Harford's The Logic of life: The rational economics of an irrational world. Next, at the top of Amazon's business bestseller list, comes Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. Human foibles, apparently, keep a few writers gainfully employed.
Both books helps explain the funny things we do using a field that's been gaining some press lately: behavioral economics. Behavioral economists demonstrate an underlying method of our madness: sure we're irrational, but predictably so. From Harford's chapter on marriage as a " market-based transaction" to Ariely's discussion of why we pay $4.00 for a cup o'Joe, you may be surprised to find out just how logical - and common - your illogical actions can be.