prom night take 2

In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Adults and teens (grade 9 and up) are invited to the Downtown Library Multi-Purpose Room for a special screening of the award-winning documentary which chronicles the events leading up to the ground-breaking prom.

Prom Night in Mississippi will be presented on Thursday, March 18 from 6:30-8:30 pm, and will be followed by an audience discussion led by the film's director, Paul Saltzman. This event is co-sponsored by the UM Community Scholars Program.

Teens from the Neutral Zone Short Story Workshop will read new stories on the theme of "impostors." The Short Story Workshop brings together young authors from Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti each Friday afternoon to work on the craft of short fiction. Their latest book is The Lizards Are Crawling Back through Your Window. Teens and adults are welcome to this special reading! Friday, March 26, 7:00-8:30 PM at the Downtown Library Multi-purpose Room.neutral zone

secretGarden

Do you love to write? Join director Jacqueline Corteau for a Scriptwriting Workshop on Sunday, March 7 from 2-4 PM at the Downtown Library and help write a scene for the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre’s Junior Theatre Company spring production of The Secret Garden. Those interested in the workshop should be familiar with the book and have read Chapters 1 – 3. The spring performance will be held in the U-M's Matthaei Botanical Gardens!

Interested in auditioning for the play? Auditions will be held on March 9 and 11 at Ann Arbor Civic Theater. Click here for more information.

My friend Mother Goose and her very fine Gander will be entertaining us with her merry and magical tales and rhymes on Tuesday, March 2 at 10:00 am at the Downtown Library. If you have encountered Mother Goose at the Kerrytown Market, where she has delighted hundreds of families over the years, you know you are in for a treat!
Trudy

Poor Conejito! How will he ever get home safely? Little rabbits searching for home, will keep the Tuesday 10 am and Wednesday 11 am storytimes at the Downtown Library hopping next week!

Calling all Kindergarteners through fifth graders to meet an Australian kangaroo named Tulip, and a Burmese python called Princess Snuggle Bug, among others, at the Downtown Library on Wednesday, February 24th at 2:00 pm. We have asked Steve Marsh, from Copper Leaf Crossing, to return because we can tell he loves and respects his animals and he shares that enthusiasm with families.Macaw

of civil wrongs and rights

This Emmy-winning documentary, Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story is the story of a forty-year legal fight to vindicate Fred Korematsu, a shipyard welder, who refused to obey an Executive Order sending thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry into internment camps.
Discussion after the film will be led by May Watanabe, internee; David Yamamoto, internee; and Lori Saginaw, daughter of May Watanabe and third generation Japanese American. This event is for Grade 9-Adult, and is cosponsored by the UM Community Scholars Program.

Thursday, February 18 | 6:30-8:30 PM | Downtown Multi-Purpose Room | Grade9-Adult

Residents of the Great Lakes region share a devotion to our magnificent freshwater lakes for the many ways they enhance our lives. The lakes are part of a living ecosystem and their health, and that of the organisms that depend on them, is greatly influenced by human activity. James Diana, Director of the Michigan Sea Grant College Program, will review the massive environmental changes since European settlement. He'll look at current issues like Asian carp, round gobies, zebra and quagga mussels, botulism and harmful algal blooms to help us think about the future of this amazing natural resource. Join him at the Downtown Library, Monday, Feb. 15, 7-8:30 pm.

The cool cats, and those who love them, will be gathering at the Tuesday 10 am and Wednesday 11 am storytimes at the Downtown Library next week. These fun-loving kitties just have to experience life at it’s fullest!

Do LOLcats & FAILBLOG.org give you five minutes of awesome happiness everyday? Then you must join us for an evening with Internet content connoisseur Ben Huh at the Downtown Library on Fri., Feb. 5 at 7 PM. I Can Has Cheezburger? (aka LOLcats) and FAIL Blog are two popular blog sites in Ben's company, Pet Holdings, Inc., one of the largest blog networks in the world. We expect a crowd for this event so be sure to arrive a bit early. No registration is required and this event is free of charge.

Ben Huh | Friday, February 5 | 7 PM | Downtown Library

lolcats