One of the best things about listening to an audiobook is hearing the story in the character’s voice. In L. A. Meyer’s Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy, narrator Katherine Kellgren reads with a strong Cockney accent that brings the heroine dramatically to life.

After she is reduced to begging on the streets of London, teenager Mary Faber takes a chance at a new life by disguising herself as a boy, Jacky, and joining a British warship on the hunt for pirates. Things become even more complicated when she falls in love with fellow ship’s boy Jaimy and becomes the target of unwanted advances from another sailor. There’s plenty of adventure, romance and scares in this award-winning audiobook.

The audiobook series continues with Curse of the Blue Tattoo, Under the Jolly Roger, In the Belly of the Bloodhound, Mississippi Jack, My Bonny Light Horseman, Rapture of the Deep, and The Wake of the Lorelei Lee.

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.

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!

Hello! Hello! by Matthew Cordell is a smart little picture book. And if you’re a parent with cell phone and a child both calling for your attention, this one’s a hoot. With few words the books tells the story of a girl saying hello to those around her, and everyone’s too busy with their phone, their iPad, their laptop, etc. The little girl then ventures outside and says HELLO to all things outdoors, and then she has a great idea! It’s a cute little story that’s appropriate for children growing up in device-filled times.

As hard as it is to believe, Spring Break is just around the corner! Not sure where to go or what to do? Let literature be your guide!

Taking a trip to New England? How about stopping at Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, MA, the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, CT, or the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Gardens at the Springfield Museum in Springfield, MA?

A fan of the yellow brick road and ruby slippers? Check out the Oz Museum in Wamego, KS or the All Things Oz exhibit in Chittenango, NA, both places dedicated to the work of L. Frank Baum.

Looking for something a little more rustic? Three locations in the center of the U.S. pay tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House series: Mansfield, MO; De Smet, SD; and Walnut Grove, MN.

Journeying to the west coast? How about a tour of and a picnic in the gorgeous Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, CA?

Want to go abroad? Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of the Anne of Green Gables series, lived in and set her stories on the charming Prince Edward Island in Canada.

If you already have spring break plans, now’s a good time to start planning for summer vacation!

Here's another intriguing Amazon best-selling teen book: Once Upon a Marigold, by Jean Ferris. Published in 2002, the book is "part comedy, part love story, and part everything-but-the-kitchen-sink," according to the cover. Currently the Kindle edition is #13 on Amazon's list. Written for readers in about grades 5-9, the book stars a young commoner named Christian, an admirer of Princess Marigold. Interestingly, Christian lives in a cave with a troll. As Queen Olympia plans to take over the kingdom, it becomes clear that she will stop at nothing to get this done and that Marigold may be in danger.

Red Cat Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond is the story of two cats. Blue Cat stayed upstairs, and Red Cat stayed downstairs, and when they crossed paths they always hissed at each other. Blue Cat didn’t know that Red Cat secretly wished he were as smart as Blue Cat, and little did Red Cat know that Blue Cat wished he was fast and bouncy like Red Cat. One day they both come up with the best idea! Blue Cat will dress up as Red Cat and Red Cat will dress up as Blue Cat. Well, it doesn’t quite go as planned and in the end they find out that they like being themselves more than anyone else, and surprisingly, after all that ruckus, the two cats end up friends. It’s a super cute picture book with wonderful illustrations and a surprise ending that both small children and grown-ups will enjoy reading together.

Currently the bestselling teen book on Amazon is Angelfall(Penryn and the End of Days, Book 1, the debut novel of Susan Ee. Romantic and dystopic, this novel has spent 97 days so far on Amazon's list of the top 100 teen books. It was written for readers about age 14 and up.

The novel opens shortly after angels of the apocolypse descended to destroy the world, seeking revenge against humans for killing the archangel Gabriel. When warrior angels grab a little girl, the child's 17-year-old sister, Penryn, makes a deal with Raffe, a handsome injured angel, and they set out through Northern California toward San Francisco, the angels' stronghold.

According to Amazon, the author "used to be a lawyer but loves being a writer because it allows her souped up imagination to bust out and go feral."

I love gardening and look forward to spring when all the new buds start coming up. In the winter I continue my plant obsession indoors and a great way to get inspired was by perusing the book, the Unexpected Houseplant by Tovah Martin. Beautiful pictures, wonderful ideas, some plants and trees I never even considered for the indoors like Cupressus arizonica (or Blue Ice), or heard of before like Kangaroo Paws. Her writing draws you into her Victorian home located on 7 acres in Connecticut and overflowing with abundant flowers, herbs, and beautiful plant combos like sedum 'Angelina' with blue fescue. The plants are just as much a part of the pictures as the containers and the rooms themselves. The book's chapters are divided into seasons and describe not only each houseplant for the season, but the care, light exposure, water requirements, optimum temps, and any problems to note. Tovah Martin has a blog you can follow called Plantswise and many books, one in particular covers the rediscovered joy of terrariums, called The New Terrarium.

A current resident of Ann Arbor has a story to tell about her remarkable survival during a period of tremendous upheaval and bloodshed a lifetime ago and an ocean away. Miriam Garvil's autobiography "I Have To Survive: Miriam's Story" is available on Amazon and is the culmination of twenty years' worth of work. Ninety-two year old Garvil, who resides in an assisted living facility in Ann Arbor, began writing with the encouragement of social worker Ruth Campbell, who continued to assist Garvil's work even after retiring herself.

"I Have To Survive" reveals the author's past growing up in Poland before the outbreak of the Second World War, and recounts her memories of the concentration camps Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She lost her mother, father and sister in the camps, and recalls her promise to her father: "If you don't survive, I will survive for you".

You can find more information on Miriam Garvil and her story in this month's issue of the Ann Arbor Observer.