Eric Guilbert

From history to travel, interviews to fiction -- this month's youth magazines sure have a lot of interesting stories to share!

Dig Magazine starts the party with an issue focusing entirely on the history of food. Learn about Ancient Egyptian bread baking and the history of the tortilla, as well as how to roast a whole pig. Even more fun than McDonald's!

Jack and Jill travels the world, with a look at winter holiday celebrations and life in Mongolia's Gobi Desert, as well as an interview with 16-year-old figure skater and Olympic hopeful Mirai Nagasu.

Ever heard of scientists who brave dense jungles and hang from trees to study rare insects? Ranger Rick Magazine has the whole story, along with cool pictures of animal sculptures made entirely from tin cans.

If this makes you feel like exploring the world, come on down! The library is always the best place to start.

If you and your family are looking for something not too scary to check out this weekend, try one of these:

Monsters Inc.
Monsters need to scare kids in order to power their city.

The Halloweentown movies
A thirteen year old girl finds out that she is a witch and that her grandmother lives in a magical city called Halloweentown.

Casper
A girl and her father move into a haunted house and find that one of the ghosts in their house is friendly.

The Black Cauldron
Taran the pig keeper has to find the Black Cauldron before the evil Horned King does (based on the works of Lloyd Alexander).

Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Three orphans and an apprentice witch have adventures in a magic bed.

Moyocoyani

The Ballet Folklorico Moyocoyani Izel will perform at the Downtown Library on Sunday, November 1, 2009 from 2:00-2:45pm in celebration of Day of the Dead. The exciting dances and authentic costumes will be a thrill to see! The performance is in celebration of The Day of the Dead (El Dia de los Muertos), a holiday that commemorates the wonderful memories of our lost loved ones. The holiday is often observed with bright colors, memorial displays for those we have lost, and yummy confections. Similar holidays are celebrated throughout the world.

SPECIAL NOTE: DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND - AN ADDITIONAL PERFORMANCE FOR THIS EVENT HAS BEEN ADDED AND WILL OCCUR FROM 3:30 - 4:15 PM ON SUNDAY.

tween

The magazines on our parent shelf are taking on the world, and they can take you along for the ride.

Parenting: School Years starts out strong with an article on how to enjoy your child's "difficult" tween years, and just keeps on swinging with a special Mom Congress report on the necessity of art education, a guide to family hapiness, and their picks for "toys of the year."

Coincidentally, Family Fun Magazine also features their Toy of the Year Awards -- number one is Klutz's "Invasion of the Bristlebots", a kit for making robots out of toothbrush heads. The magazine continues with an article on blogging as a family, a list of fun Thanksgiving activities, and five unique pie recipes for those bored with the same old pumpkin-from-a-can variety.

Gifted Child Today tackles some serious issues in their fall edition -- a guide to involving children in caring for the earth, an article by Dr. Gilman W. Whiting, director of the Scholar Identity Institute on reducing dropout rates among diverse students, and a guide to identifying signs of Asperger's syndrome-- an Autism-spectrum disorder.

If all this makes you want to roll up your sleeves and dive in, great! These great ideas and more are just a trip to the magazine rack away.

Halloween is around the corner and that means it's time for the annual showing of "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" on Wednesday, October 28th at 8pm on ABC. If you will not be able to watch it, the library also owns a few copies. The library also owns the book version. Here are a few new Halloween stories that are available in the youth collection: Boo to You!, Mystery Vine: A Pumpkin Surprise, Haunted Party, There Was an Old Monster, Pick a Pumpkin, Mrs. Millie! and J is for Jack-O-Lantern:a Halloween Alphabet. Have fun, and don't stay up too late waiting for the Great Pumpkin!

Other holidays have a multitude of books written in honor of them, but where is the main text for Halloween? Sure, there are plenty of scary, eerie, and unsettling books published to get you in the mood for the holiday, but what can stand on its own as exemplary of Halloween itself? Something that can be reread annually, such as A Christmas Carol is to Christmas. The Halloween Tree is the answer to this question.

A short read, this book poetically jumps through the origins of the celebration throughout time and other cultures. The imagery is pure Halloween, with jackolanterns, an abandoned house, gargoyles, mummies, witches, cemeteries, and what might be a ghost. Bradbury seems to effortlessly create a wild, fun, fantastic world for the reader as soon as the story begins in a small Indiana town.

There was an animated movie based on the novel that has not yet been released on DVD, but the movie is a classic as well.

flag

City of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County and State of Michigan offices will be closed on Friday, July 3, in observance of Independence Day. City of Ann Arbor trash, recycling and compost trucks will follow their regular Friday schedule. Post Offices will close at 12 noon on Friday, July 3, and will be closed on the 4th of July.

Note also that most State of Michigan offices will be closed on Monday, July 6, as an unpaid furlough day.

Today, May 5 is also known as Cinco de Mayo, the holiday commemorating the victory of the Mexican army over the French in the town of Puebla, Mexico on May 5, 1862. The day is celebrated mainly in the town of Puebla and in many places in the U.S., especially cities with significant Latino populations. People participate in parades, eat indigenous foods and dress in traditional Mexican clothes. The day is often confused with Mexico's day of independence which is September 16.

To celebrate in Ann Arbor, head to the Firefly Club where a dj will spin Salsa music and you can indulge at the taco bar. Festivities begin at 9 p.m. Or check out books and cds from our collection and whip up your own Mexican specialties to the tune of your favorite Latin music.

VDAY

Around this time of year a conversation staple is Valentine’s Day. Questions of “what are you doing, where are you going, who are you going with” are floating in the air. If you’re not doing anything and tomorrow may as well be February 26th for all you care, there are some books that may make you laugh and smile. The Anti- Valentine’s Handbook is a girl’s guide on how to laugh and survive V-Day, for the younger set there’s Love Stinks (and no, Katie Kazoo is not into mushy gushy stuff), and there’s Hating Valentine’s Day, a fiction story with A Christmas Carol-esque twist where a single woman is visited by a ghost who is trying to change her “no time for dating” mind.

new years eve

Ready to ring in 2009? We know how they celebrate at Times Square. In fact, you can watch a live webcast of people celebrating in New York and around the world. In other countries, people have different ways of celebrating the new year. In Mexico, people eat one grape for each chime of the clock and make a wish for the new year. In Venezuela, people wear yellow underwear for good luck. In Japan, people eat soba noodles because their length symbolizes long life. At midnight, Greeks eat a cake called a vasilopita with a gold coin baked inside. Whoever gets the piece with the coin will have a good year. So "drink a cup of kindness yet" for 2009.