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Logan

by PizzaPuppy

Logan opened in theaters on March 3rd to rave reviews and is looking to reshape the superhero movie as we currently know it. Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine/Logan in his 9th appearance in the role spanning 12 years-- this marks his last appearance as Logan. The film takes inspiration from both the revisited Old Man Logan and the original Old Man Logan (available through MelCat), as well as Death of Wolverine. Whether you've seen it yet or not, the library has plenty of materials to quench your thirst for Wolverine.

Revisit Jackman's previous work as Wolverine with the first and second movies in the Wolverine trilogy: X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine. You can also revisit Wolverine as part of the X-Men, in movies such as X-Men, X-Men United: X2, X3:The Last Stand, X-Men First Class, X-Men Days of Future Past and X-Men Apocalypse. It's not an X-Men movie, but also take a look at Shane, which features heavily in Logan and shares similar thematic elements.

Looking for more comic book fun? Give Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins & Endings, or Weapon X a try. Review Wolverine's past with Wolverine Omnibus Vol 1, or watch him face off with his former friends in Wolverine vs. the X-Men.

Kids can also get in on the fun with Readers such as This is Wolveridne, Marvel Superhero Squad: Adventure Collection. They can look up key facts about their favorite heroes with Meet the Marvel Super Heroes, and read comics like Mini Marvels. Wolverine even features as one of the superheroes in the The Super Hero Squad Show series.

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FestiFools and AADL: Something New!

by manz

Our fellow robots, the time has come to change things up and we at AADL are retiring our robot suits for something new. We want to help keep things fresh for FestiFools fans! This year AADL is hosting multiple building workshops for ALL AGES to help us make two community puppets, and for you to make your own costumes or instruments for the big FestiFools event on Sunday, April 9.

This year we are bringing a big, bright, yellow sun puppet to join in whatever fun the official FestiFools organizers have planned for Ann Arbor! We’ll accompany our GIANT sun on Main Street with all of us decked out in our brightest sunniest YELLOW costumes as we march to fantastic beats. Onlookers will see so much YELLOW parading down Main Street! (Robots are always welcome at FestiFools, AADL just isn't hosting workshops to make them.)

We will have opportunities to papier–mâché, paint fabric, make a sunshiney costume with capes and masks, make a drum, and more. We are SO excited to have you join us in helping make FestiFools even more foolish and bright this year!

Festifools Workshop: Community Puppet Building Sunday, March 19 from 1:00-3:00
All ages will work together to help make a GIANT sun puppet that we’ll all march down Main St. at the BIG FestiFools event on Sunday, April 9! It will march alongside a mysterious surprise creature that you will help create in bits and pieces. While you won’t be making your own puppet at this workshop, you’ll have a chance to work together to be a part of something BIGGER that all will see.

FestiFools Workshop: Costume Making Sunday, March 26 from 1:00-3:00
Create your own costume to be worn while marching down Main St. at the BIG FestiFools event on Sunday, April 9! We are bringing a GIANT sun puppet to FestiFools and we need you to be the yellow rays to go with it. We’ll have supplies for capes, wings, hats, masks, and more – many golden yellow supplies to help make us into bright glowing orbs.

FestiFools Workshop: Make Instruments with Drummunity Sunday, April 2, 2017 from 1:00-2:00
Lori Fithian of Drummunity will help us make simple percussive instruments.
Meet back up with us on April 9 at the BIG FestiFools event ready to march along playing your instrument while wearing the most yellow sunshiny costume you can come up with. Picture a GIANT yellow sun with many marching alongside beaming with gold and playing music.

FestiFools Workshop: March with Drummunity Sunday, April 2 from 2:15-3:00
Lori Fithian of Drummunity will lead us in making the most of our unique musical instruments, getting us in the FestiFools spirit with a mini march.
Bring your own instrument or come to the instrument-making workshop right before this. Then meet back up with us on April 9 ready to march along in the BIG FestiFools event, playing your instrument while wearing the most foolish yellow costume you can come up with.

Meet Up and March Over to FestiFools! Sunday, April 9 at 3:30pm
Calling all fools! Meet us in the lobby in your most foolish costumes ready to march over to Main Street and join in the FestiFools fun from 4:00 - 5:00 pm. We library fools are all wearing yellow to surround the sun! So dress in yellow, dress in costume, be silly, and bring your instruments! Get ready to make some noise and spread some cheer in downtown Ann Arbor!

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More Armored Bears!

by endless

Hiding in a cupboard in the Master's room at Oxford, Lyra Belacqua sees him try to poison her uncle, an important northern explorer and scientist. Lyra's daemon, Pan - an external animal manifestation of her soul creature, something between a patronus and animal familiar - urges her to leave quietly, but Lyra decides instead to warn her uncle. In doing so, she aligns herself with his quest to understand the northern lights and to build a bridge to another world. Pullman's trilogy takes place in a multiverse that spans something like WWI England, contemporary America, and a separate universe called Cittegaze, with its own rules of soul and substance. The "northern lights" trilogy, made of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, won several prestigious awards and was made into a series of films (see ). Pullman's trilogy has long been a favorite series to recommend to precocious young readers and teens looking to explore new literary worlds, much as Lyra bridges the universes of the books with her daemon in tow. For every young person today who has sorted themselves into Gryffindor, imagined a pet owl or rat, or wishes they could play quidditch, there's a slightly older person who has imagined themselves a daemon that changes animal forms depending on their true internal state, who has re-read Pullman's trilogy or read it aloud to their children and wondered about the fate of the armored polar bears.

We will soon get another installment of the bears, Lyra, and her northern journeys, because Philip Pullman recently announced a new trilogy to be released in fall 2017! "The Dust," the first new book takes place during the same historical timeline as the original trilogy. This is a great opportunity to go back to Pullman, who challenged young readers and older science fiction devotees to think about humanity's role in global destruction, who challenged the religious tenets of many YA series like the The Chronicles of Narnia, and who imagined a multiverse based on a particle physics decades before Steven Hawking. The series rewards re-readers and celebrates the power of children's curiosity.

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After you've finished Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad

by endless

If you're one of the hundreds of patrons who have checked out and enjoyed Colson Whiteheads award winning novel, Underground Railroad, you might be looking for another narrative journey about slavery, freedom and the routes in between. These novels are rich with historical detail, sense of place and the weight of telling long-hidden stories. Their flinty, insightful heroines struggle against systems that define them as property, and also against the pull of "home" with their enslaved family and friends.

James McBride's novel about a runaway slave who learns to follow a "code" of five knots invokes oral histories of maroons, parables about freedom and captivity, and the fierce will of it's main character to live a free life. Sue Monk Kidd's recently well received novel, The Invention of Wings tells the story of Hetty "handful" Jackson/Grimke, who grows up belonging to the famous 19th century abolitionist and feminist Sarah Grimke. Hetty's nickname is well earned, and this novel tells the story alternating between her inner monologue and Sarah's, giving readers an intricate picture of slave and free black society at the time. Edward Jones's pulitzer prize winning The Known World which follows Frederick Douglass' journey to Ireland and back, before and after his manumission.

Octavia Butler's Kindred is the foremother for all of these more recent novels about captivity and escape. Kindred uses science fiction tropes of time travel to explore the dangers of living in Maryland as a free black woman during slavery, and as a black female author telling a story about slavery. Like The Known World, Kindred jumps between slavery and freedom, questioning how one state depends on the other.

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Blind Date with a Book and Surprise Books for Kids!!

by PizzaPuppy

Stop by any of the AADL locations for a sweet February surprise!

Adults and teens will find Blind Date with a Book displays, where one can hopefully find the mysterious item of their dreams! Books (and movies!) are wrapped in butcher paper and decorated with hearts in red, pink and purple. They have a short description of what the material inside contains… but you’ll have to check out the item and take it home to unwrap to find out if it’s really meant for you!

Kids aren’t left out either! There are Surprise displays at every location too, where kids will find mystery items decorated with stars and question marks in bright rainbow colors, and wrapped up with only hints written on them to imply what’s inside.

These displays will be up for the entire month of February, so don’t miss your chance to find your match!

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Friendship, Racism, and Courageous Love

by mansii

When an old friendship turns stale as you both change with age, what does loyalty and love look like? How do you decide who you are beneath the desire to be accepted? When a town trembles like a waiting bomb in the tension of racism, how do you be part of the healing when things fall apart?

Superbly written and deeply felt, Every Single Second by Tricia Springstubb is a densely layered exploration of what makes each of our moments significant. Through alternating glimpses of past and present, we follow the friendship of "secret sisters" Nella and Angela from Kindergarten through the start of Jr. High. Nella has been a refuge for Angela in the midst of a difficult family life, and Angela has protected Nella from some of her biggest mistakes. In the present, everything has suddenly shifted: their Catholic private school is closing down, Nella discovers a family secret that turns what she trusted in most upside down, and the big brother they both looked up to has made an un-fixable, shocking mistake. Nella and Angela need each other more than ever, but by now they have little in common, and the gap between them has become a gulf. Will Nella choose to be the hands and feet of love, or push farther into the care-free world of fun with her newer best friend Clem? Even if she wanted to help, the hurt between them may have pushed Angela out of reach.

The heroes in this story are outside the spotlight--quiet and courageous souls who walk into riots with gentle words of peace, give all their savings to help a grieving family of a different race, and go forward out of haunting mistakes to live their next days with goodness. Gently enough told for the young, and complex enough for those older, this is a story about where the strength comes from to meet tragedy and disappointment with fearless, courageous love.

*For more stories about friendship, big changes, and finding courage see Tricia Springstubb's other titles Moonpenny Island and What Happened On Fox Street *

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From the Page to the Screen: Hidden Figures

by PizzaPuppy

The new movie Hidden Figures is in theaters now, and is already generating positive reviews and a plethora of award nominations. This amazing true story, first published as Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a group of extraordinarily talented and dedicated African American female mathematicians, whose calculations launched John Glenn into Earth's orbit and won the space race. These "human computers" used slide rules, pencils, and adding machines to perform the advanced mathematics needed to calculate trajectories, launch windows, and navigational charts in case of electrical failures, among others. These brave women faced adversity through sexism and segregation, but persevere through it all to become key players in evolution of NASA and space exploration. This amazing story is also available on audiobook and Large Print.

Author Margot Lee Shetterly will be speaking at Rackham Auditorium on January 24th from 4-8:15 PM. More information is available here.

Looking to learn more about the phenomenal women scientists that propelled us into space? Check out Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (also available here in Large Print. Or learn more about the many women who have since traveled to outer space through items such as Promised the Moon, Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream, and Astronaut Pam: Countdown to Commander (an especially interesting nonfiction movie that follows Commander Pam Melroy and her crew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery). We also have books about women inventors, such as Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women.

Also check out our resources regarding two very famous pioneering female astronauts: Mae Jemison and Sally Ride. Books on Sally Ride for an adult audience include this photobiography and Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space. To the Stars, Sally Ride: Life on a Mission, and Who Was Sally Ride? are all intended for kids interested in learning more about Sally Ride. We also have many resources on Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to travel to space, such as this biography, You Should Meet Mae Jemison or Mae Jemison, Awesome Astronaut!. You can even read books written by the astronaut herself, such as The 100 Year Starship.

Just into space? We have lots for you to check out here at the library, such as Eyewitness Space Exploration, or the Astronaut Handbook. The Dream is Alive is a fascinating DVD that uncovers life on a space station, and witnesses the first space walk performed by an American woman. We also have a Library Space Camp program for kids coming on Thursday, April 6th at the Downtown branch, where you can learn all about what makes a successful astronaut and complete cool space activities.

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A watch with super powers...

by mansii

A watch with super powers, an underground gestapo, an expert climber, and a mysterious lighthouse...follow Reuben in this swashbuckling adventure as a very scared, ordinary boy fights evil with true friendship, hard choices, and a big dose of courage. Trenton Lee Stewart gave the world The Mysterious Benedict Society--one of the best things to happen to children's literature since Harry Potter. Now, Stewart's new stand alone novel The Secret Keepers has arrived to take fantasy lovers (or just lovers of great story!) by the pant-seat.

The writing is superb, the characters shine, the relationships sparkle, and the layers of story exude goodness from their pores. Stewart's characters wrestle with moral dilemmas that don't have easy answers, and come to understand the internal slavery of those who propagate evil, exercising compassion.

Both a powerful look at the sinister spiral of power's addictive nature and a bracing encouragement, the The Secret Keepers affirms that whatever battles we each must find the courage to fight, all will be well at last. When you rub your eyes to come back to reality, your heart will glow treasuring the life you have been gifted and the people in it that make it extraordinary.

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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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Lois Lowry's Photographed Life

by mansii

Youth author Lois Lowry has been a long-standing beloved household name for a number of her Newberry winning books, not the least of which are The Giver and Number the Stars. The Giver many might know from its 2014 movie rendition including star actors such as Meryl Streep. Lowry has always been one to write stories that not only capture the imagination but challenge her readers to question, and to hang tight to all the goodness they can find. They are insightful and provocative for both the young and old.

Her newly updated and expanded autobiographical work retains this legacy. Looking Back: A Book of Memories reads like an album. The reader flips through glossy page after glossy page of photographs paired with a short, page-long reminiscence. Each glimpse of Lowrian history is also joined with a quote from one of her books, so we can trace her inspiration for characters and passages. Lowry traces the lines where her personhood is inextricably linked to the stories she has crafted.

In a simple style aimed towards the middle grade audience her novels have been written for, Lowry uses these pages to welcome us into her own family. She points out details and gives backstory, shares personal responses and humorous anecdotes, much like one might pass down stories to a grandchild. She conveys not only her own life, but includes photographs of her parents, children, grandchildren, and even some friends, showing the web through which we form our identity.

Looking Back is not entitled a “Book of Memories” for nothing; Lowry gently asks many questions about the nature of memory throughout these pages, a theme readily seen in The Giver as well. When we see a face but cannot remember a name, what does that do to a person’s identity? Does time’s inevitable morphing of names and details mean that our memories become false? How is our memory influenced by the fleeting moments captured by the camera, even when these moments would be seen differently in light of a bigger picture? One thing becomes clear: memory is a gift, and the small moments of our lives make history.