The Ann Arbor Young Actor's Guild will present a lively adaptation of Mark Twain's classic book on April 27 and 28. Twain's book tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander who brings to King Arthur’s Age of Chivalry the “great and beneficent” miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and American ingenuity. Through the collision of past and present, Twain exposes the insubstantiality of both utopias, destroying the myth of the romantic ideal as well as his own era’s faith in scientific and social progress.

Mark Twain first published his novel in 1889. Since then, this famous story has been adapted many times. In A Knight in Camelot Whoopi Goldberg plays a computer scientist whose computer malfunctions. This causes her to be sent back in time with her laptop. She uses the device to amaze the court of the 6th-century English King Arthur and his court.

It has been said that If Mark Twain were alive today, he'd probably be publishing interactive novels on the Web. Like many people of his time, he embraced new technological developments and saw them as a measure of human potential. But Twain was also keenly aware of the limitations of technology, as he shows in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

If you are, classes will start soon at Jewish Family Services. This robust curriculum includes class instruction on Preparing for the Citizenship Test, Civics-based English Language Instruction and U.S. Government & History Lessons. Registration begins April 16th. For more information contact Nicole Graham-Lusher, Citizenship Program Coordinator: 734-769-0209 or nicole@jfsannarbor.org.

May 1, 2012 is Law Day. This is a day that marks our country's commitment to the rule of law, established first by President Eisenhower in 1958. The Washtenaw County Bar Association is offering up to 20 minutes of free legal advice in two locations on this day for interested advice-seekers: Upstairs of the Ann Arbor Community Center and downstairs of the Ypsilanti District Library-Michigan Avenue. Call 996-3229 between April 16-April 30 to set an appointment. Walk-ins are welcome as time allows that day.

Find community assistance and support groups for Metro Detroit with the United Way of Southeastern Michigan's online database. Enter your zip or nearest city then search for services by category, keyword, agency or program. The database currently features 2000 agencies in Lapeer, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties. Click to apply if you are a service provider that would like to be included.

Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley is currently seeking families to partner with for their 0% interest home-ownership program. You may qualify if you are a U.S. citizen or have permanent residency status, live or work in Washtenaw County, have a need for simple, decent and affordable housing, and meet certain income requirements. To learn more visit www.h4h.org, where you can complete an online intake form, or call (734) 677-1558 x106.

Catching a ride to or from DTW is now easier than ever with AirRide! AirRide, a service of The Ride, offers 12 affordable trips a day from downtown Ann Arbor to Metro Airport. All of their buses are equipped with ADA Compliant wheel chair lifts. For this service, 24-advance registration is required. For more information or to make a reservation, click here. Happy Trails!

Check out the amazing miniature display in the Youth Department. Thanks to the Ann Arbor Little Gems Miniature Club, you will see tiny treasures, from Snow White’s cottage to a classic bakery with petite goodies. On May 12th at 1 pm, at our Malletts Creek Branch, fourth graders and up are invited to create a magical Woodland Hide-A-Way, with experts from the Miniature Club. There are so many talented miniature artists around! Stop by the glass case Downtown to see the hide-a-way made of bark and stones and moss, that you can make too. It's the one with the elfin figure in the acorn cap! So many possiblities!

In celebration of National Poetry Month and National Library Week, the Ypsilanti District Library is proud to present Poet Billy Collins on Thursday, April 12 at 7 pm at Washtenaw Community College’s Towsley Auditorium in the Morris Lawrence Building. Teens and adults are welcome to attend this special event which is free and open to the public.
Dubbed “the most popular poet in America” by Bruce Weber in The New York Times, Billy Collins is famous for conversational, witty poems that welcome readers with humor but often slip into quirky, tender or profound observations on the everyday, reading and writing, and poetry itself. He served two terms as the U.S. Poet Laureate, from 2001-2003, was New York State Poet Laureate from 2004-2006, and is a regular guest on National Public Radio. He has taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, and Lehman College, City University of New York where he is a distinguished professor.
Collins was born in 1941 in New York City. He earned a BA from the College of the Holy Cross, and both an MA and PhD from the University of California-Riverside. Though Collins published throughout the 1980s, it was his fourth book, Questions about Angels (1991) that propelled him into the literary spotlight. Subsequent works garnered comments noting that Collins’s skillful, smooth style and inventive subject matter “helps us feel the mystery of being alive” and “Rarely has anyone written poems that appear so transparent on the surface yet become so ambiguous, thought-provoking, or simply wise once the reader has peered into the depths.”
A few of his major works include: Nine Horses: Poems (2002), The Trouble with Poetry (2005), Ballistics (2008) and Horoscopes for the Dead (2011). Collins has described himself as “reader conscious”—“I have one reader in mind, someone who is in the room with me, and who I’m talking to, and I want to make sure I don’t talk too fast, or too glibly. Usually I try to create a hospitable tone at the beginning of a poem. Stepping from the title to the first lines is like stepping into a canoe. A lot of things can go wrong.”
The site of the reading will be at Washtenaw Community College’s Towsley Auditorium located at 4800 East Huron River Drive, Ann Arbor, MI.

We are sure that the warm weather will return in time for Festifools when we team up with our awesome partners at 826michigan for a robot invasion! Join us at the Downtown Library this Sunday, April 1 at 2:00-3:45 to make a ridiculous costume and then we will parade down Liberty and meet up with the giant puppets in the alley. The foolery begins at 4:00 pm and we will be right in the middle of it all! Happy spring!

The Taubman Health Sciences Library at the University of Michigan will host the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibition, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race. The exhibition illustrates how Nazi leadership enlisted people in professions traditionally charged with healing and the public good, to legitimize persecution, murder and, ultimately, genocide.