Blog Post
2012 Caldecott and Newbery Awards Announced
by kidlit
The two biggest awards in the world of children's literature were announced last Monday.
A Ball for Daisy, written and illustrated by Chris Raschka won the Caldecott Medal for best illustrated book. This is the second Caldecott Medal for this talented illustrator.
He also won the Medal in 2006 for the illustrations of Norton Juster's The Hello, Goodbye Window.
Author Jack Gantos won the Newbery Medal for his book Dead End in Norvelt. This award is for best children's book published in the previous year.
For a complete list of all the awards, click here.
Blog Post
2012 Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
by K.C.
The 2012 winner for the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18) during the November 1 2010 – October 31 2011 publishing year is Notorious Benedict Arnold. Most people know that Benedict Arnold was America’s first, most notorious traitor. Few know that he was also one of its greatest war heroes. Please meet the real Arnold: reckless, heroic, and driven. Packed with first-person accounts, astonishing battle scenes, and surprising twists, this is a gripping and true adventure tale.
The four 2012 Excellence in Nonfiction finalists are:Sugar Changed the World : a Story of Spice, Magic, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, Wheels of Change : How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom, and Music was It : Young Leonard Bernstein.
Blog Post
2012 Printz Award Winner and Honor books
by K.C.
This year’s winner of the Printz Award is Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley. Seventeen-year-old Cullen's summer in Lily, Arkansas, is marked by his cousin's death by overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his younger brother's sudden disappearance.
The 2012 Printz Honor Books are Why We Broke Up, The Returning, Jasper Jones, and Scorpio Races.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #309
by muffy
Actor/playwright/filmmaker Ayad Akhtar is now a first-time novelist with the publication of American Dervish * last week. With rights sold to 19 countries, this might just be the first Muslim-American novel to reach commercial mainstream.
"(B)rilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life", the novel opens with Hayat Shah, heavy with guilt, remembering his first love, Auntie Mina - independent, beautiful and intelligent, and his mother's oldest friend from Pakistan. Her arrival enlivens their previously dour and secular household with laughter and she brings an abiding Muslim faith which she begins to share with Hayat, awakening in the 10 yr.old boy a fierce infatuation, and a new religious identity.
When Mina falls for his father's Jewish colleague Nathan, Hayat feels betrayed. A reckless scheme to set things right brings on devastating consequences for all those he loves most.
"The young teen's personal story about growing up in pre-9/11 Muslim America is both particular and universal, with intense connections of faith, sorrow, tenderness, anger, betrayal, questioning, and love."
A readalike for Leila Aboulela's The Translator (2006) and Hisham Matar's Anatomy of a Disappearance (in audio), (2011).
Ayad Akhtar is an American-born, first generation Pakistani-American from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. An award-winning playwright (Brown, Columbia) he starred and co-wrote The War Within (2005), which was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay and an International Press Academy Satellite Award for Best Picture - Drama.
* = starred review
Blog Post
A Lannister Wins GOLD(en) Globe
by DaudiExperience
As the award season comes into full swing our favorite movies, television shows, actors and actresses are again vying for top honors. One of my favorites among the vast talent in Hollywood is Peter Dinklage who plays the role of Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones, which is based on the book of the same title by George R.R. Martin.
Dinklage who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Series at this years Golden Globes won for his portrayal of Tyrion Lannister. However, this is not the first award Dinklage has won for this role, he also won the Emmy in the same category. Peter Dinklage's career has been spread between film and television. Here are a list of films AADL carries that Dinklage can be found in; the most noteworthy being his role in the Station Agent where he won in 2003 for Best Actor at the Ourense Independent Film Festival.
Death at a Funeral (2007) and (2010)
Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian
Elf
Penelope
Find me Guilty
Underdog
Lassie
Game of Thrones is set to return for a second season on HBO in April.
Blog Post
November's Books to Film (You KNOW! the season is upon us)
by muffy
Brian Selznick's charming Caldecott Medal winner The Invention of Hugo Cabret : a novel in words and pictures (2007) is one for the whole family to hit the big screen on November 23rd. In this moving and entertaining film adaptation, an orphaned boy secretly lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks. He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a mechanical man. Martin Scorsese directs a star-studded cast of Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law.
Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is the highly anticipated next chapter of the blockbuster The Twilight Saga. The new-found married bliss of Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen is cut short when a series of betrayals and misfortunes threatens to destroy their world. Wide release on the 18th, savvy fans know the drill.
The gritty noir novel London Boulevard (2001) by Ken Bruen has been adapted into a feature film starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Ray Winstone. An ex-con hired to look after a reclusive young actress finds himself falling in love, which puts him in direct confrontation with one of London's most vicious gangsters.
In A Dangerous Method, adapted from the book by John Kerr, on the eve of World War I, Zurich and Vienna are the setting for a dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery. Drawn from true-life events, it explores the turbulent relationships between fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud and Sabina Spielrein, the beautiful but disturbed young woman who comes between them. Starring Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Viggo Mortensen.
George Clooney, Judy Greer, and Matthew Lillard star in The Descendants, adapted from the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Wealthy Hawaiian landowner Matt King has his life upended when his wife, Joanie, is involved in a boating accident. King struggles to reconnect with his two daughters as the three of them take a journey to deliver the news of Joanie's imminent death to the man with whom she was having an affair.
My Week With Marilyn, is based on Colin Clark’s (played by Eddie Redmayne) controversial memoir. The film centers on the tense relationship between Sir Laurence Olivier ( Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe ( Michelle Williams) during production of The Prince and the Showgirl. In the early summer of 1956, 23-year-old Colin Clark, just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. In his diary, one week was missing, and this is the story of that week when Colin introduced Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life.
Blog Post
2011 Teens' Top Ten Book Winners
by Caser
Each year, teens ages twelve to eighteen from the YALSA-organized, Teens' Top Ten Book Groups, nominate and vote on the best new books for young adults. This year, more than 9,000 teens from across the country voted for the winners.
Click here to see the full list of winners and nominees, as well as a video interview with winning author, Cassandra Clare, for her top-rated novel, Clockwork Angel. The AADL owns all of the top ten books, which you can find on this public booklist.
Blog Post
A Winner Among Us
by muffy
Of the 1,582 entries at this year's ARTPRIZE (see blog), 10 winners were voted in and among them is Ann Arbor artist Lynda Cole.
Taking 3rd place, her 3-D kinetic sculpture entitled Rain consists of 7600 squares of silver leaf on polyester film, and is suspended by aluminum monofilament within a 10 ft. cube of space and move with ambient air currents.
This photo at left represents one module. The Art Prize entry comprised of 25 modules. To see all of them, go to the artist's website or blog.
As our commitment to showcase and support local artists, The Ann Arbor District Library is proud to include two of Lynda Cole's work in our circulating art print collection , entitled Winter and Explore. Now you too, could live with great art.
Blog Post
2011 Teen NBA Finalists Announced
by K.C.
Six books are up for the National Book Award in the Young People’s Literature Award category. They are:
Chime by Franny Billingsley
Before Briony's stepmother died, she made sure Briony blamed herself for all the family's hardships. Now Briony has worn her guilt for so long it's become a second skin. She often escapes to the swamp, where she tells stories to the Old Ones, the spirits who haunt the marshes. But only witches can see the Old Ones, and in her village, witches are sentenced to death. Briony lives in fear her secret will be found out. Then Eldric comes along with his golden lion eyes and mane of tawny hair. He's as natural as the sun, and treats her as if she's extraordinary. And everything starts to change.
My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson
Luke knows his Iñupiaq name is full of sounds white people can’t say. So he leaves it behind when he and his brothers are sent to boarding school hundreds of miles away from their Arctic village. At Sacred Heart School, students—Eskimo, Indian, White—line up on different sides of the cafeteria like there’s some kind of war going on. Here, speaking Iñupiaq—or any native language—is forbidden. And Father Mullen, whose fury is like a force of nature, is ready to slap down those who disobey. Luke struggles to survive at Sacred Heart. But he’s not the only one. There’s smart-aleck Amiq; Chickie, blond and freckled; and small, quiet Junior. They each have their own story to tell. But once their separate stories come together, things at Sacred Heart School—and the wider world—will never be the same.
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by—and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape—and the strength of her very own family.
Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Albert Marrin
On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City burst into flames. One hundred forty-six people—mostly women—perished; it was one of the most lethal workplace fires in American history until September 11, 2001.
But the story of the fire is not the story of one accidental moment in time. It is a story of immigration and hard work to make it in a new country, as Italians and Jews and others traveled to America to find a better life. It is the story of poor working conditions and greedy bosses, as garment workers discovered the endless sacrifices required to make ends meet. It is the story of unimaginable, but avoidable, disaster.
Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt
As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him. As Doug struggles to be more than the “skinny thug” that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer—a fiery young lady. In Lil, Doug finds the strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town, and the return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from Vietnam. Together, they find a safe haven in the local library, and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage.
Blog Post
ARTPRIZE 2011
by muffy
If you are not planning on attending THE Game or the obligatory tailgate and would like a bit more elbow room on Saturday, you could do a lot worse than getting in the car and heading west.
ARTPRIZE turns the city of Grand Rapids (Michigan) into an art gallery for two weeks every fall. Billed as "a radically open competition", it opens today and will run until October 9. As an international art contest solely voted on by the general public, your votes are essential.
Here is how to vote, and a map to help you navigate all the venues.
The 10 finalists will be announced on Thursday, September 29, and the winners on Thursday, October 6.
The helpful folks running the show have put together some visitors' info. Make good use of it, including the free shuttle.