Ages 11-18
Blog Post
"It's All Write!" Contest Guidelines are now posted!
by krayla
Teen writers interested in entering the "It's All Write!" Teen Short Story Contest may now view the 2015 Guidelines! The guidelines have all of the most important information about submitting to the contest.
The "It's All Write!" Teen Short Story Contest has now been running for 23 years! Last year received the largest number of submissions at 358 stories. Teens all over Ann Arbor, Michigan, and even across the world choose to participate each year.
"It's All Write!" will begin accepting submissions on Tuesday, January 27. For more information about the contest, please visit the contest homepage: itsallwrite
Happy writing!
Blog Post
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future
by manz
“We form. We shine. We burn. Kapow.”
Printz Honor author A.S. King has done it again. Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future is superbly written and features a unique premise.
Glory is seventeen. Her mother commited suicide when Glory was just four years old. Her father is depressed and works from home on the couch. Her boy-obsessed best friend Ellie lives across the street in a hippie commune. She is about to graduate high school and our story begins at the end of her childhood.
One night something happens that allows Glory and Ellie to see a person's infinite past and future simply by looking at them. In this future there is a second civil war, women’s rights disappear, there’s a new tyrannical leader, a new army, and young girls vanish daily. Glory takes meticulous notes on what she sees hoping it will make a difference.
Glory is a fantastically written teen character. She is the odd-girl-out, a loner with no need for friends. She has her camera and the newly unlocked darkroom of her dead mother. And with the discovery of her mother’s old notebooks Glory learns mountains about herself and her family and how it all came to be, and it allows her to see a better future for herself.
Blog Post
Resources for High School Students
by aadl staff
Are you a high school student who is starting to think about life after graduation? AADL cardholders can access all of the resources LearningExpress Library has available by logging onto aadl.org. Just click the "Research" tab, then select "Test Prep." You will then be prompted to register through learningexpresshub.com
Learning Express Hub is full of resources for preparing for just about anything! If you are college bound, there are resources on how to write college admissions essays, including tips on grammar, editing, and how to tackle your personal essay. There are also practice tests to help you prepare for taking the ACT and SAT.
Not sure if you want to go on to college? You can prepare for several "Occupational Exams" too. A few available are: homeland security, cosmetology, emergency medical services, air traffic controller and culinary arts.
Blog Post
Girls Like Us: Great for Group Discussions and Teen Book Clubs!
by krayla
Gail Giles's new teen novel, Girls Like Us, weaves the heart-wrenching tales of two young women thrown together by what at first seems like bad luck. Quincy and Biddy were in the special education program together in high school, and they were anything but friends. Biddy had a reputation with the boys and Quincy was well-known for her mean streak. When they learned they'd be living together cooperatively, they thought life couldn't get any worse.
Told from the alternating perspective of each woman, "Girls Like Us" slowly reveals abusive childhoods and cruel experiences that have shaped who they are today. Everywhere they go they carry the insults slung at them like parasites, the words so deeply ingrained that they are accepted as truth. Although much of the intertwined tale of Biddy and Quincy is an unflinching look at human cruelty, the heart-warming moments of gradual friendship make this novel worth the emotional toll. It both empowers readers and inspires reflection on memory, change, hope, friendship, and family.
Gail Giles has written several books for teens, including What Happened to Cass McBride? and Playing in Traffic. "Girls Like Us" appeared on the longlist for the 2014 National Book Award in Young People's Literature, and was inspired by several previous students in Giles' 20 years of teaching special education classes.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #501 - “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it." ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love.
by muffy
2 UK debuts. 2 young women rising out of bleak adolescence to realize the individuals they are meant to be.
British cultural critic Caitlin Moran follows up her 2012 New York Times bestselling memoir How To Be a Woman with a debut novel - How to Build a Girl * * that draws from her own experience, having joined the music weekly Melody Maker at an very young age before becoming a prize-winning columnist at the London Times.
14-year-old Johanna Morrigan, the product of a large dysfunctional council-flat welfare family in the West Midlands, decides to remake herself after an embarrassing appearance on national TV. Almost overnight, the freaky fat girl who is at once "endearing, hilarious, pathetic, and wise" becomes the feared music reviewer Dolly Wilde (named after Oscar's niece - "this amazing alcoholic lesbian who was dead scandalous"), drinking regularly, having lots of sex, and writing acidulous reviews of rock bands. But is that enough?
"Moran's coming-of-age debut novel is both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, a treat for young adults as well as those who remember the era (1990s) and its music."
In Making Marion : where's Robin Hood when you need him? * * by Beth Moran, Marion Miller leaves behind her job as a library assistant, a doctor-fiance and a childhood of neglect and abuse in Ballydown, a hamlet in Northern Ireland for Nottinghamshire, to uncover her father's secret past.
Searching for Sherwood Forest Visitor Center lands her at the Peace and Pigs campsite, an impromptu job offer, and a place to call home. Though hard work and the determination to overcoming her shyness earn her friendship and acceptance, the locals refuse to talk when shown the photograph of her father as a young man, dressed as Robin Hood. Only Reuben, heir to Hatherstone Hall is willing to come to her aid, motivated by a connection to his family history.
"Roaming pigs, food fights, and conspiring chickens add flavor to this delightful debut, which also touches on mother-daughter relationships, family secrets, and finding love, and yourself."
"One of the best inspirational novels of the season", it will appeal to fans of Jane Green, Marian Keyes, and Jill Mansell.
* * = 2 starred reviews
Blog Post
Tons of Popular New CDs at the Library!
by eapearce
Lots of brand new CDs are on order for the AADL and now is the time to get on the holds list! Here are just a few of the exciting new titles we have coming:
1989, by Taylor Swift, produced two number one singles this year: “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off.” This is the singer’s fifth studio album and what she has said is her first “official pop album,” as opposed to her country and country-pop albums of the past. In their annual list, Rolling Stone named 1989 #10 on the 50 Best Albums of 2014.
24 karat gold: songs from the vault, is Stevie Nicks’ much publicized eighth solo album. Most of the songs are new versions of demos that Nicks recorded in the 70s and 80s, with a few from the 90s thrown in, along with a cover of Vanessa Carlton’s “Carousel.” The album debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200 and has been well-received by music critics.
747, by Lady Antebellum, released in late September of this year, is the sixth studio album by the popular country group. Their single “Bartender,” from this album, hit number 1 on the US Country Airplay chart this past summer and the album itself debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200. Fans love Lady A’s easy, often celebratory country-pop tunes, and 747 did not disappoint!
Art Official Age, marks the return of Prince “with a contemporary concoction of soul, R&B, and funk with immediate and prominent melodies.” This is Prince’s thirty-third studio album (!), and was released in conjunction with a second album, Plectrumelectrum, by Prince and his all-female touring band, 3rdeyegirl. Prince’s fans have been pleasantly surprised by this album, and excited that the artist’s musical talents have far from diminished over the years.
You can browse the “New CDs” section of our catalog to see these titles and the other brand new music that the library has!
Blog Post
National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature
by manz
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature at last night's awards ceremony. In the book the author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South. The other finalists in this category were:
Threatened by Eliot Schrefer
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin
Noggin by John Corey Whaley
Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two by Deborah Wiles
See the full 2014 National Book Award list of winners in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. (And AADL's list of the titles in the catalog for quick hold placing!)
Blog Post
Vanessa and Her Sister: new fiction on the life of Virginia Woolf
by eapearce
Vanessa and Her Sister, by Priya Parmar, is a brand new book that offers a look at a fascinating time and place in world history. The year is 1905 and pre-war London is bustling with young artists and intellectuals. The four orphaned Stephens siblings—Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby and Adrian—decide to take a house together in fashionable Bloomsbury. All young, gifted and unmarried, they bring together a glittering circle of talented and outrageous friends that will eventually become known as the Bloomsbury Group. At the center of the circle are the sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. When the book opens, Vanessa, the painter, has never sold a piece of her work and Virginia, the writer, has just had her book review turned down. But as time passes, the sisters and the others in the circle begin to meet with success. When Vanessa falls in love, her complicated and possessive sister feels dangerously abandoned and begins a tailspin of self-destruction. With the threat of tragedy looming over the family, Vanessa must decide how to save herself and her loved ones while also protecting her own happiness.
This book is has been recommended for fans of Loving Frank, The Chaperone, and The Paris Wife and offers a fascinating and intimate viewpoint of the life of Virginia Woolf and her struggles with mental illness.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #494 - “Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.” ~ Lev Grossman
by muffy
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg is "an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight (readers) of all ages."
19 year-old Ceony Twill, graduated (at the top of her class) from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Despite her dreams of being a smelter, she has been assigned as a "Folder," (paper magic) - the lowest in the hierarchy in the pantheon of magicians.
Things get off to a rocky start when she is greeted at the door by a paper skeleton, but under the tutelage of the amiable Emery Thane, Ceony learns to bring the most amazing paper creatures to life. That is until Emery's past comes back to haunt him. To save her teacher's life, Ceony must face an Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic and embark on an unbelievable adventure.
Just released is The Glass Magician, the sequel.
If you have been floundering for something magical to read since The Night Circus, your wait is over. Fans of Karen Russell and Lev Grossman might want to check these out too.
Blog Post
Surviving Hitler: A love story
by Enzy
Directed by John Keith Wasson, Surviving Hitler: A love story is an inspiring account of war, resistance, and survival in Nazi Germany. Jutta is a teenager in a country that is on the threshold of war when she discovers that she is Jewish. Struck by this discovery, and faced with the atrocities of war, she joins the German resistance and meets a wounded soldier named Helmuth. The two quickly form a romantic attachment and join the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler. Though there are tragic elements to the story (inevitable when it is set in Nazi Germany), there is a happy ending.
This film is a combination of interviews with Jutta and original 8mm footage shot by Helmuth. According to GQ magazine, these “home movies, which miraculously survived the war in Helmuth’s mother’s apartment, are reason enough to watch Surviving Hitler, providing a rare and intimate glimpse of relatively ordinary life carrying on in Berlin despite the encroaching horror.” (read the whole review here)
Surviving Hitler premiered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and has won 3 awards including the Full Frame Inspiration Award, Ojai Festival Theme Award, and the Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film.