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Interest: Book Lovers

Get ready for the 2024 Family Read

Published: February 23, 2024

We are thrilled to announce Little Monarchs by Jonathan Case as this year’s Family Read.

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Celebrate Banned Books Week 2023 with YDL

Published: September 29, 2023

Celebrate Banned Books Week 2023 (Oct 1-7)!

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September is National Library Card Sign-up Month!

Published: August 28, 2023

September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month

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YDL receives Great Stories Club grant from the American Library Association

Published: July 25, 2023

Grant will allow librarians to lead book clubs with underserved teens

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Evicted : poverty and profit in the American city

Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Being Heumann : an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist

Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people.  As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in …

The Yellow House

Broom writes about a hundred years of her family story and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother’s struggle against a house’s entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina. The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives …

The Grapes of Wrath

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize–winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have-nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

The Lovely Bones : a novel

“My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.”  So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her — her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.

The Women of the Copper Country : a novel

In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements spent her whole life in the mining town of Calumet, Michigan, where men risk their lives for meager salaries and have barely enough to put food on the table for their families. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren’t coming home. So, when Annie decides to stand up for the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to …

The Paris Wife : a novel

Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway in Chicago in 1920. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the …

Parable of the sower

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions.  Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community …

Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging
Michigan Notable Authors visit YDL

Published: May 2, 2023

This year, the Michigan Avenue branch is a stop on the 2023 Michigan Notable Books tour!

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National Library week poster. "There's more to the story."
Celebrate National Library Week 2023!

Published: April 19, 2023

April 23-29 marks National Library Week 2023, a week dedicated to honoring libraries, library workers, and their impacts on their communities. This year’s theme is “There’s more to the Story.”

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Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging
Get excited for a Michigan Notable Books talk with Ghassan Zeineddine and Sally Howell!

Published: March 28, 2023

Ghassan Zeineddine and Sally Howell, two of the editors for Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging, will join us to read and discuss their work.

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Novelist K-8 Plus logo
NoveList K-8 Plus

Find just the right book by subject, age, awards won, books made into movies, and more. Read reviews and learn about the author. Create your own reading wish list. Includes tools for teachers, such as Lexile levels and Common Core standards.

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance Read Alikes for Younger Readers

Find some books for younger readers to participate in the 2023 Family Read, Maizy Chen’s Last Chance by Lisa Yee.

Lisa Yee
2023 Family Read brings virtual visit from national award-winning author

Published: March 6, 2023

Lisa Yee, who has won multiple national awards for her writing, will pay a virtual visit in April to  Ypsilanti as part of the 2023 Ypsilanti District Library Family Read activities.

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Selection of 15 children's picture books
Bring YDL Storytimes home!

Published: February 28, 2023

If you haven’t attended a storytime at the new Superior Branch of the Ypsilanti District Library yet, you’re missing the chance to bring home a free book!

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Interactive Books for all Readers!

Do you know a reader who loves to play with their books? Suggest some of the titles below for anyone looking for a pop-up, lift-the-flap, peek-through, pull-and-slide, or upside-down book adventure! If you know of a book in our catalog that has an interactive element and you would like to add to the list, email Stephanie Pocsi-Morrison (smorrison@ypsilibrary.org). Interactive Picture and Board Books Bizzy Bear : zookeeper Davis, Benji Bizzy Bear works as a zookeeper and takes care of the alligators, feeds the penguins, and rides in a safari. Find in catalog Crinkle, crinkle, little car In the style of …