Are you interested in films in other languages but just don’t know where to start? It can seem daunting to pick a movie to watch when it’s not in your native language. With “A Separation” in Persian, you can be sure of a great viewing experience. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011 as well as awards from the Fajr Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Globes, the New York Film Critics Circle, and many more.

“A Separation”, a film by renowned director Asghar Farhadi, is a gripping drama about two families torn apart by love, fear, and lies. It begins with the debate of a married couple, Simin and Nader, who argue over bringing their daughter to Europe for a better life. They decide their only choice is divorce, because Nader needs to stay behind to care for his aging father with Alzheimer’s disease. Once a maid is hired to help care for the father, everything begins to fall apart.

Experience this great movie by checking it out on Blu-Ray or DVD from the AADL! You may also want to view Asghar Farhadi’s other great films, including “Fireworks Wednesday,” and “Low Heights.” Please note: "A Separation" offers subtitles in English and French, and presents some mature topics that are not suitable for children.

The March issue of the Ann Arbor Observer has a particularly good article about Jacqui Robbins, who is a writer, director and teacher in Ann Arbor. This article profiles Robbins, author of the children's books The New Girl. . . .And Me, and Two of a Kind. She also has a piece in the new book Dare to Dream - Change the World, a poetry collection inspired by coverage of the 2011 uprising in Egypt. Around Ann Arbor, Robbins is active in many community organizations including 826 Michigan, where she is president of the board.

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When I was teaching I always had to giggle (to myself) when a student mistakenly thought a book was based on a movie, instead of the other way around. Many of my students got a whole lot more screen time than they did book time, so it was an understandable mistake.
If it was available, I often showed the movie version of a book after we completed reading it. It served as a treat for a job well done and also as a way to stretch out a lesson. After watching the movie I had my students write a paper on the differences they observed. Often children are so much more observant than adults and I was amazed at some of the differences my students, and my own children, came up with. (In my home I don’t make my children write a paper, but we do have great conversations on their findings!)
At the Ann Arbor District Library we have a many titles that allow for this type of interaction. One of my all time favorites is Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. The story is about a wily fox that uses his impressive cunning to outsmart three feeble-minded farmers, who resort to extreme measures to protect their chickens. (The book is 81 pages long and can be read in the time it would take to watch the movie.) The movie, directed by Wes Anderson, stars the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and William Defoe, to name a few. It is great family flick that can be enjoyed by all, young and old. The soundtrack (also available at the AADL) features some fun Burl Ives classics, 60s pop and rock tunes and a few other quirky ditties that are fit for family listening.

In Aria Beth Sloss's Autobiography of Us, the ending is never in doubt, being spelled out right in the first sentence. And it draws you in, hook, line, and sinker - into a story of friendship, loss and love, between two women.

In the patrician neighborhood of Pasadena, California during the 1960s, Rebecca Madden and her beautiful, reckless friend Alex dream of lives beyond their mothers' narrow expectations. Since that day when Alex Carrington first walked into the classroom and picked quiet Rebecca as her friend, they have been everything to each other - that is until one sweltering evening the summer before their last year of college, when a single act of betrayal changed everything. Decades later, Rebecca's haunting meditation on the past reveals the truth about that night, the years that followed, and the friendship that shaped her.

"Autobiography of Us is an achingly beautiful portrait of a decades-long bond. A rare and powerful glimpse into the lives of two women caught between repression and revolution, it casts new light on the sacrifices, struggles, victories and defeats of a generation".

Aria Beth Sloss is a graduate of Yale University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Iowa Arts Foundation. This is her debut novel.

Readers might also enjoy the forthcoming by Meg Wolitzer - The Interestings (2013), "a dazzling, panoramic novel about what becomes of early talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships".

AADL continues to grow its collection of films that have a Descriptive Video Service or DVS feature. More films are being produced for children and adults that are Described Video Recordings for L Card users to borrow. Some are even available by mail to our WLBPD patrons as Free Matter for the Blind. If your vision isn't what it used to be, you may want to try watching a film with described narration. That way you don't have to ask other folks what's happening on the screen and can concentrate on the film.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is next week! I love this time of year. So many films to see in just a few days time. Have you been hawking over the schedule and taking notes of what you’d like to see? Be ready, as the fun begins gala-style on Tuesday, March 19 and runs through Sunday, March 24.

Established in 1963, The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the longest-running independent and experimental film festival in North America, and we are lucky to have it in our own backyard. The 51st annual festival is bringing some wonderful experimental films to the Michigan Theater, and a visit from Ken Burns is also on deck!

Fore more film fodder, be sure to check out the Ann Arbor Film Festival Archive, accessible online. You’ll have full access to old photos, flyers, articles, festival programs, and interviews from past festivals. Meanwhile, to view some of the films of past festivals, check out these collections available at AADL:

Time Pieces: 46th Ann Arbor Film Festival, DVD collection, Volume 1

Unexplored territories: 47th Ann Arbor Film Festival, DVD collection, Volume 2

48th Ann Arbor Film Festival, DVD collection, Volume 3

The Downtown library has a shelf in the Youth Department known as the Parent Shelf. On this shelf you’ll find a variety of parent-child related books on a multitude of topics- including everything from language to tantrums to potty training to homework. These books are available for checkout, and can be found in the catalog when searching “parent shelf,” if you’d like to have one sent to a branch of your choice. Here you’ll find some great books that cover raising teenagers. Check out such titles as:

*The available parent : radical optimism for raising teens and tweens,
*Getting to calm: cool-headed strategies for parenting tweens + teens
*Uncommon sense for parents with teenagers
*Read on-- speculative fiction for teens: reading lists for every taste.

For additional titles, see here for a variety of parenting books.

Take an emotional roller coaster ride with Ellen Forney, author and illustrator of Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me: a graphic memoir. Meet Ellen in a manic period of life learning of her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Follow her as she first attempts to deal with her mania without meds, and then with meds. For five years Ellen valiantly struggles as she works with her psychiatrist to achieve a balance without sacrificing her creative self. Woven in with Ellen's story you'll find information about the different levels of bipolar disorder, the creative people who have suffered from the disorder, and the array of medications patients may take in order to strike an emotional balance.

The drawings are cartoony in style but so expressive of Ellen during both the manic and depressive times of her life. In one part of the story the only thing you see on each page is a tiny Ellen lying on her side wrapped in a blanket. The pages with this image go on and on relentlessly. You want it to end because you hate the hopeless feeling those images portray, just a tiny fraction of what Ellen is enduring. Marbles is a remarkable book that won’t be easy to read or to put down.

Ms. Rachel presented "Candle and Candy stories" in Preschool Storytime this week, which also included birthday stories.
Max and Ruby went to the store to buy Grandma a birthday gift in Bunny Money by rosemary Wells.
There were all kinds of suspicious noises going in the kitchen one day, where the "Lonely Candle" stayed in a drawer.

Here are my favorite birthday stories:
On The Day You Were Born by Debra Frasier
Birthday Presents by Cynthia Rylant
Mr Rabbit And The Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow ... and in Spanish El Sr Conejo y El Regalo Perfecto
A Birthday For Cow by Jan Thomas
The Birthday Box by Leslie Patricelli
Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan

Or follow this link to birthday picture books in the Library.

If you are anything like me, March rolls around and you begin to crave the juicy flavor of a sun-warmed tomato or the crunch of a raw sugar snap pea. OK, maybe I started to crave those back in November..but, March is when I can actually allow myself to think about what delicious food I am going to grow. It is also when I can take little steps to growing this food, such as ordering/planting seeds and beginning to plan the layout of my garden. Around this time my imagination runs rampant and I end up with way more seeds and varieties of tomatoes than I could ever plant, let alone eat. With the help of some resources from AADL, you can wrap up in a blanket with a warm cup of tea, and look forward to the day when the sun is once again shining and you are not under 5 layers of clothes.

With books such as The Backyard Homestead, Great Garden Companions, and Easy Vegetable Garden Plans…you can begin to plan your summer growing experience.

Don’t have enough land to plant a garden? Have no fear! You can plant in containers if you only have a porch or a deck. There are many books that offer solutions to the problem of not having available land to plant a traditional garden. To see a list of books that address this and other issues that may arise when you are trying to garden in a small space, click here.

I would also recommend making a trip to the AADL location and browsing the gardening section. You can also browse our collection online here.

Also, if you do not have the space to garden but still want to get your hands dirty, there are many opportunities for you! Community gardens like Better Together Community Garden or organizations such as Growing Hope in Ypsilanti exist so you can get outside and work with the earth no matter what your living situation may be.

Get ready, summer is just around the corner!