education

An Education, winner of the Audience Choice award and the Cinematography award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival is adapted from British journalist Lynn Barber's "short, sharp" memoir (currently only available in the US @ amazon.com in the kindle edition).

Jenny, Oxford bound, is a bright young girl on the cusp of her 17th birthday who finds herself in a whirlwind romance with a much older David. Smooth, dashing and worldly, he offers Jenny the lifestyle she never imagined might so easily be hers and an education of another kind. Oxford goes out the window.

Critics like Rex Reed, Joe Morgenstern, Kenneth Turan and Peter Travers all agreed that Education is " one of the year's best" . With the script written by Nick Hornby, one could expect his trademark pitch-perfect dialogue, mordant wit and resonant humanity. (Limited release this weekend).

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is based on Tucker Max's shocking, ridiculous and hilarious real-life adventures - an impromptu bachelor party gone horribly awry thanks to a midget, a fat girl, a gaggle of strippers, public intoxication ordinances, and the consequence of Tucker’s unflinching narcissism and selfishness.

Where the Wild Things Are tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions.

The Wild Things, desperate for a leader, crowned Max king, and he soon finds that ruling his kingdom is not an easy thing. This animated feature film is adapted from Maurice Sendak's lovely tale that has captivated generations of young readers.

Pete Hautman is the National Book Award winning author of a strikingly unusual set of novels found in the AADL's Teen Fiction collection. Take his 1996 sci-fi, Mr. Was, where teenager Jack Lund discovers a secret door that takes him 50 years into the past inside the attic of a crumbling cliff estate that he and his mother share to escape from his abusive father. Or Invisible, the story of two boys who have been best friends forever, bound together by their fascination with fire though separated by their vastly different degrees of popularity at school.

Another great choice is the 2004 National Book Award winner, Godless, about Jason, a sharp 15-year-old who breaks from the tenets of his unshakably Catholic father and starts his own mock religion that worships the Ten-Legged God, a water tower at the center of town. One night's rituals on top of the water tower will test Jason, his religion, and his friendships in this quirky, yet thoughtful perspective on organized religion.

In the spirit of Banned Books Week, BBC News reported today that J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, was denied a top U.S. award because some White House officials believed her books encouraged witchcraft. According to the news article, Matt Latimer, a former speech writer for President Bush, said that certain members of the Bush administration prevented Rowling from receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom because they felt that the Harry Potter books promoted witchcraft.

The award has been given to other authors of challenged and banned books in the past, including John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath, and Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird.

In his 1943 essay, Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre claims, "It is evident that non-being always appears within the limits of a human expectation." Sartre's awareness of the ability of death and/or absence to create meaning in life continues to resonate with authors and readers sixty years later. What has brought the authors below to reexamine this theme of loss and recovery? The sudden destruction of the WTC towers perhaps, or the disappearance of a viable American job market, or maybe something darker still.

Take Gregory Galloway's 2005 fiction, As Simple As Snow, a teen/adult crossover novel about a homogenized high school boy whose life suddenly becomes meaningful when his quirky, spontaneous girlfriend disappears the day before Valentine's Day. Or Carol Plum-Ucci's 2001 Printz Honor Book, The Body of Christopher Creed, where the titular character's mysterious absence casts a menacing shadow over a small town, eventually exposing the dark secrets of the people closest to him. And in John Green's 2006 Printz Award Winner, Looking for Alaska, Miles Halter's new life at Culver Creek boarding school is everything he could have hoped for in the "great perhaps" he was seeking, until tragedy gives his life new focus. Check out all of these novels from the AADL today.

disgrace

Written by 2003 Nobel Prize laureate J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace was awarded the Man Booker Prize (1999). In stunning prose, it tells the story of Professor David Lurie's extended stay at his daughter's smallholding and the incident of unimaginable terror and violence that forces father and daughter to confront their strained relationship —and the equally complicated racial complexities of the new South Africa.

Starring John Malkovich, the film is shot in the ruggedly beautiful landscape outside of Cape Town, South Africa. See the New York Times review. Limited release September 18, nationally October 2nd.

The Informant, starring Matt Damon, is adapted from Kurt Eichenwald's 2000 bestseller, the "true story" about Mark Whitacre, a rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in the early 1990s, who blew the whistle on the company's price fixing tactics and became the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower in US history.

Coco avant Chanel (Coco before Chanel) is based on Edmonde Charles-Roux's biography of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey, becomes the legendary couturier. In French - with Audrey Tautou playing the title role. Sumptuous cinematography and a sensational soundtrack.

NBA

For the first time in its history, the National Book Award for Fiction is open to public vote. To participate, cast your vote for your favorite National Book Award recipient from 1950 to 2008.

Why fiction? You might wonder. Well, for one thing, 74 of the 77 fiction winners are in-print and available, the highest percentage of any category. Here is a complete list of the winners.

2009 Manga Contest

The judging is done and the winners have been announced! Judging was conducted by Jerzy Drozd and Shannon "Roku-Chan" Townsend. With over 80 entries in four age categories the judges had a tough time this year! The top three finishers in each category received gift certificates to Wizzywig and medals. All of the artwork will be on display through August in the Downtown Youth Department and can also be found online in our image gallery!

Click Read More to see the list of the winners!

The 2009 Orion Book Awards have been announced. Orion is one of the best magazines you will find, whose byline – nature/culture/place – reveals its focus. The editorial board reads like a who’s who of contemporary luminaries in the environmental movement, such as: Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, Edward O. Wilson, Barry Lopez, Jane Goodall. Orion manages to be artistic, literary, probing and provocative, with cutting-edge articles on the politics, ethics and practice of environmentalism, farming and forestry and featuring the work of artists, poets, and storytellers. It inspires personal commitment to change the world, one short shower, cloth bag, bike ride and community garden at a time.

Every year the editors acknowledge books that, “deepen our connection to the natural world, present new ideas about our relationship with nature and achieve excellence in writing”. The winner of the award this year is Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land by Amy Irvine. The finalists are: The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane, The Bridge at the Edge of the World by James Gustave Speth, Inventing Niagara by Ginger Strand and Finding Beauty in a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams. The Reader’s Choice Award went to Man Killed by Pheasant by John Price.

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost has been chosen winner of the 2008 Mitten Award.

The Mitten Award is sponsored by the Michigan Library Association. It is an award for the best children's book published in a calendar year and is selected by a committee of youth services librarians from all over Michigan.

Diamond Willow is the story of a young girl living in Alaska. It is an adventure tale, it is a family tale. The story is told in diamond-shaped verse with small bolded lines within each verse that help the reader understand the girl's feelings and thoughts. It is a beautifully told tale.

Four honor books were chosen as well.

Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka.
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look.
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.
The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman.

Try these titles for some good summer reading!

Margaret Prior, an upper class woman in Victorian London, begins visiting the women of Millbank prison after a failed suicide attempt. She finds herself drawn to Selina Dawes, a spiritual medium sent to prison after the death of a woman during a séance. Margaret begins to believe Selina’s claims of occult power after a series of mysterious gifts appear. As the women’s relationship grows deeper, Margaret starts to develop a plan to free Selina from Millbank.