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Ages 11-18

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Blog Post

Best Books of 2016

by muffy

Let's start with probably the most anticipated - New York Time's 100 Notable Books of 2016 and the just released The 10 Best Books of 2016.

Well-chosen are The Washington Post's list of this year's best of the best, and I am astounded how similar the 2 lists are.

NPR’s Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads lists over 300 titles that the NPR staff and critics loved this year, many of them award-winners.

Speaking of winners, look no further than the ">2016 Goodreads Choice Awards in 20 categories. I should mention that they are the only major book awards decided by readers.

For the fiction reader among us, check out The Huffington Post's the 18 Best Fiction Books of the year; and the Library Journal's best in Genre Fiction (in categories of African American Fiction, Christian Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance, SF/Fantasy, Thrillers, and Women's FIction), as well as Graphic Novels.

Publishers' Weekly Best Books 0f 2016 is notable for a list of the Best Children's and YA Books 2016.

Among specific subject lists, check out The Smithsonian's picks for The Best Books About Science of 2016.

Happy Reading.

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Blog Post

R U OK?

by Beth Manuel

Here's a disturbing statistic: One out of seven Washtenaw County middle and high school students have contemplated suicide. What can we do about it?

Through the collaboration of ONE Washtenaw, agencies, organizations and the faith community are working together to coordinate their efforts to prevent suicide, especially of our young citizens. One of their joint ventures is the 'R U OK?' Suicide Prevention Campaign. Community Mental Health, Ozone House and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline have created this awareness campaign. Additionally, training is available for anyone who would like to be a 'lifeguard'. By following the training components of R U OK community members & students can learn how to detect signs of depression & hopelessness, what to say and resources to share. Sometimes just ONE positive interaction can make all the difference for someone contemplating ending their life.

If you feel like you're not O.K. and need someone to talk to here are some important phone numbers: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, Washtenaw Community Mental Health Access: 734-544-3050 or 800-440-7548 and Ozone House: 734-662-2222.

Spread the word & find out: R U OK?

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Blog Post

Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights TEEN GROUP

by Beth Manuel

Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, or WICIR has long been a champion for our immigrant community by providing advocacy, information and legal assistance. Recently this group has created a safe space for immigrant youth & allies. Meetings take place at Corner Health every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month. Upcoming meetings are December 12, and January 9, 2017. Contact Frania Mendoza for more information: 734-273-9109 or WICIR.YOUTH@gmail.com.

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Teens Using Drugs: Education Series

by Beth Manuel

The Dawn Farms Education Series, "Teens Using Drugs: What To Know and What To Do" reconvenes in January, 2017. This is a free, two-part series that will be presented from 7:30-9:00 pm Tuesday, January 3rd (part one, "What to Know"), and Tuesday, January 10th, (part two, "What to Do"). The programs will be held in the "Exhibition Room" on the first floor of St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Education Center at 5305 Elliott Drive, Ypsilanti. The sessions are presented by the Dawn Farm Youth & Family Services team. This program is targeted primarily to parents/caretakers of teens & young adults but is inclusive of other family members, teens, professionals, students, people who sponsor or support teens, and others interested. Please contact 734-485-8725 or info@dawnfarm.org or see the link to Dawn Farm for further information.

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Blog Post

A Look Back, a Step Forward

by Lucy S

How do you write about recent, disastrous history in a middle-grade book? And why? Jewell Parker Rhodes answers both of these questions in her new book, Towers Falling. This isn't the first book in which she has tackled hard, real life issues. Rhodes won The Coretta Scott King Award for her 2010 book, The Ninth Ward, the story of a girl braving Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In Towers Falling, Rhodes has again created a necessary and captivating book focusing, in part, on the events of September 11th. A class of fifth-graders in a Brooklyn school begins their school year by learning about the missing towers in the New York City landscape they see from their classroom window. As the year is 2016, none of these children were alive on September 11, 2001, and this towerless panorama is the only one they know. Their teacher, Ms. Garcia, uses this cityscape and its significance to begin a dialogue on interconnectedness, and the idea that history is alive. The students eventually come to realize that they are all connected to one another through this living history and therefore linked to the victims and witnesses of September 11.

At the heart of this story is fifth-grader Deja, who has recently moved into a homeless shelter, The Avalon, with her parents and two younger siblings. When asked to do a project about her home, Deja struggles, and then replicates her family instead of her physical dwelling. In so doing, she underscores Ms. Garcia’s message of affinity, the strength of relationships, and the nuanced meanings of family and home.

Deja and her two friends, Saleem and Ben, carry on this conversation and their learning outside of the classroom as they work on a homework assignment together. In creating a study of the “far past” and the “recent past” in America, these three arrive at an understanding of what it might mean to be an American, no matter where you’re from, or how or when you arrived. Deja is African-American, Saleem is Turkish and Ben has Mexican heritage. Their shared experiences make them realize that as part of the “American circle,” they are “different but still American.” “Some histories repeat; some events are unique. There is regional, statewide, and national history. We share all of it in common as Americans.”

Towers Falling is marketed towards 8 to 12 year-olds, and does, eventually provide some striking details from September 11, which are never easy to encounter. Still, this book is important for readers of all ages, teenagers and adults included, who will benefit from learning Deja's story, and grow because of the experience.

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Blog Post

Organize your clothing with The Curated Closet

by eapearce

If you’re anything like me, you often find yourself staring into an overstuffed closet while also thinking “I have nothing to wear!” Anuschka Rees is here to help with that exact problem in her brand new book The Curated Closet. Rees offers tips and tricks for building a wardrobe that is functional, fits in the space that one has to contain it, and suits the reader’s personal style. It was the style cultivation aspects of The Curated Closet that I found most helpful; for those of us who are attracted to a variety of pieces, determining what we really like and what really suits us can be a challenge. Rees offers great tips for discovering your own personal style, and explains how to productively shop for pieces that won’t end up buried in the back of your closet in a few months’ time. The Curated Closet is even complete with a “closet diagnostics” flow chart that maximizes organization and “garment assessment” advice, which teaches readers how to find out if a piece of clothing is well-made. And, what better time of year to attack your closet than now, as we put away the shorts and tank tops and bring out the sweaters?

For other books on closet and clothing organization try Shop Your Closet and Home Organizing & Closet Makeovers.

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Blog Post

Need a Picture ID?

by Beth Manuel

If you've been asked for a picture ID and have been unable to produce it, you may likely be able to get a Washtenaw County ID Card. Applicants must appear in person at the Washtenaw County Vital Records Division. There are point values attributed to a broad range of documents that can serve as proof for applicants to get a picture ID card when they may have been unable to get ID in the past. The cost of the card is $25.00 and is for all ages. Check out the Washtenaw County ID Project on Facebook to find out about events to promote the ID card. Community members are encouraged to get a card in an effort to de-stigmatize it for those who have no other identification card options.

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Blog Post

Post Olympic Gymnastics

by Lucy S

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

In her thrilling new novel, You Will Know Me, the world that Megan Abbott's characters inhabit will be familiar to her regular readers. This world of teenaged girls is truly Abbott’s domain, though the teenagers in this story are anything but typical. They spend most of their waking hours in the BelStars Gymnasium, opening a window to a second, equally fascinating world, that of competitive female gymnastics. As an explanation for why she chose this setting, Megan Abbott explained, in an interview on Electric Literature, that after watching the 2012 Olympics “I started to think about a novel centered on a pair of parents so devoted to their child’s talent. I started watching gymnastics obsessively, especially practices, and reading memoir after memoir — by gymnasts, former gymnasts and gymnast parents. And I started spending a lot of time in online forums devoted to parents, hearing their fears, anxieties, their pride and love.”

In You Will Know Me, Devon Knox is the star gymnast, a child prodigy headed for elite competition and possibly the Olympics. Her mother, Katie, is the closest thing we have to a narrator. Katie and her husband Eric have made Devon their world. Even Devon’s little brother, Drew, spends more time at the gym than anywhere else. Being Devon’s parents has provided the Knoxes with purpose and direction, “After all, who wouldn’t do anything for one’s child? Especially when that child worked harder and wanted something more than either of them ever had? Who wanted in ways they’d long forgotten how to want or had never known at all?”

Yet despite all the time they spend watching her, observing her, there remains something in Devon that is unknowable to the Knoxes, an innate determination and steeliness. “There Devon stood, on the competition floor. Four feet ten inches tall, nary a curve on her, but her dark eyes heavy with history, struggle. Squinting down, body pressing forward, Katie wondered at those eyes, that face. It was as if this weren’t her teenage daughter but a woman deepened by experience, a war-battered refugee, a KGB spy.” The core mystery that Abbott is offering is this idea of how well you can truly know somebody, and it is presented to us right away in Abbott’s apt and/or ironic title, almost as an imperative, You Will Know Me.

Parents may feel that they know their children and have difficulty recognizing when that intimacy diminishes. “‘Isn’t is a strange day, when you realize you have no idea what’s going on in your kid’s head? One morning you wake up and there’s this alien in your house. They look like your kid, sound a little like them, but they are not your kid. They’re something else that you don’t know. And they keep changing. They never stop changing on you.” When the Knoxes son Drew gets sick, he recovers from his illness as someone unfamiliar to Katie. He seems to possess an adult understanding of his surroundings that he didn’t have before. As the rash caused by his illness peels off, he even looks different to Katie. Her children grow apart from her, and Katie is asked to redefine her role in their lives. Abbott nicely provides us with other families representing a range of parental sensibilities. The forceful parents of the booster club stand out in particular. We, as readers, are left to wonder what urges drive these parents, if they are propelled by love, competition, a desire to do what’s right, or a need to defend family honor. “All three of them becoming as one. A united front. Confederates. That’s what families were, weren’t they? The strong ones, the ones that last. Not supporters or enablers so much as collaborators, accomplices, co-conspirators.” How important to Katie and Eric is Devon’s success, how much does it help them define their own? To what lengths will they go to ensure it?

Abbott’s writing throughout the book keeps us on edge. Her sentences are tightly wound, pointedly descriptive and fluid, like a well executed floor routine. We don’t care too much about any one character, nor or we meant to. We aren’t overly concerned with who committed the murder (yes, there is a murder). That’s not the point. We are meant to be left asking how we know one another, as parents, spouses, and teammates. Do we always want to know everything? What do we do with the knowledge we have? Abbott’s answers to these questions offer the real revelation of You Will Know Me. The mystery is in the secrets these characters are keeping. In her review of You Will Know Me in The New York Times, author Sophie Hannah shrewdly states, “Here the truth is no gold medal, no ace waiting to be played; first it’s a dark haze of menace circling out of sight, and later it’s an ordeal to be survived, possibly even a punishment.”

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Blog Post

Meet Up & Eat Up!

by Beth Manuel

Over 14% of the population in Washtenaw County are considered food insecure. During the school year, kids on the Federal Lunch program have, thankfully, a couple of meals built into their day. In the summer months, children can still rely on a considerable number of Summer Food Service Programs so that no one goes hungry. These programs are funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and sponsored by Food Gatherers. Spread the word to ensure all of Washtenaw County's children are adequately fed this summer!

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Blog Post

Jazz Record Collectors Journal

by iralax

Followers of early 20th century American jazz in Ann Arbor have been very fortunate since the 2009 closing of the Firefly Club to hear live music from that era at Kerrytown Concert House and Zal Gaz Grotto on Stadium, which convenes every Sunday (Phil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings), Monday (Paul Keller Orchestra) and Tuesday (Paul Klinger’s Easy St. Jazz Band). The Ann Arbor District Library now subscribes to The IAJRC Journal, the Quarterly magazine of the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors.

Its 100-page black & white format offers a lot of substance with very little gloss. The Spring 2016 issue with Benny Goodman and Loren Schoenberg on the cover, contains articles on recordings by Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Rudy Williams, The Deep River Boys. It also has regular features like CD, DVD & Book Reviews, Worldwide Jazz News, Big Band Quiz and lots of photos. So for those interested in the back-story with details of the heyday of early and modern jazz recordings, dig what IAJRC Journal has to offer. AADL also subscribes to Down Beat and several other music related magazines.