Life Stories

Tell your own story, or learn about someone else's.

"As a child in Izmir, Turkey in the 1980 and 90s, Ozge Samanci watched as her country struggled between its traditional religious heritage and the new secular westernized world of brand-name products and television stars. In Ozge's own family, she struggled to figure out the place where she belonged, too. Her older sister was a perfect student, and her dad hoped Ozge would study hard, go to good schools, and become an engineer to find stability in their country's uncertain economic climate. But Ozge was a dreamer and wanted adventure. Could she be a scuba diver like Jacques Costeau? Or should she become a world-famous actress? This touching memoir shows how Ozge dared to overcome both her family and her country's expectations to find happiness by being an artist"--.

Midnighter. Volume 1, Out by Steve Orlando

"Spinning out of GRAYSON comes a solo series starring the man who can predict your every move ... but no one will be able to predict what he'll do next! A theft at the God Garden has unleashed a wave of dangerous biotech weapons on the world, and Midnighter intends to put that genie back in the bottle by any means necessary. But something else was stolen from the Garden as well ... the secret history of Lucas Trent, the man Midnighter once was! Collects MIDNIGHTER #1-6"--.

"Born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and an American father in 1997, Christine Mari Inzer spent her early years in Japan and relocated to the United States in 2003. The summer before she turned sixteen, she returned to Tokyo, making a solo journey to get reacquainted with her birthplace. Through illustrations, photos, and musings, Inzer documented her journey. In Diary of a Tokyo Teen, Inzer explores the cutting-edge fashions of Tokyo's trendy Harajuku district, eats the best sushi of her life at the renowned Tsukiji fish market, and hunts down geisha in the ancient city of Kyoto. As she shares the trials and pleasures of travel from one end of a trip to the other, Inzer introduces the host of interesting characters she meets and offers a unique -- and often hilarious -- look at a fascinating country and an engaging tale of one girl rediscovering her roots."--provided by Amazon.com.

Zine Maker Workshop

Zine: a noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter - Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Join us for an open workshop on creating your own Zine! Shortened from magazine, a zine is a small, self-produced publication on a topic of your choice. Please feel free to bring your own materials, like photos, to use in the zine. Basic materials and supplies to create the zine will be available. This program is for ages 13 and over. No registration required.

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Learn about real life poets and their work. The stories included below are roughly listed by increasing depth and complexity. While these books are located in the Children's Department, there is a strong possibility that they may appeal to a wider audience.

Maya Angelou by Lisbeth Kaiser

Offers an illustrated telling of the life of Maya Angelou that focuses on how she overcame childhood trauma and realized her dream and became one of the world's most beloved writers and speakers.

Presents the life and work of the twentieth-century American writer, focusing on his fascination with words from a young age and highlighting his poetry's inspirational properties.

Learn about real life poets and their work. The stories included below are shelved in the adult department.

Also available in: e-book

The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. 

A powerful memoir of a Hmong song poet who sacrificed his gift for his children's future in America. 

March is Music in our Schools Month. Music makers come from all cultures and backgrounds, and sometimes the music we enjoy the most comes from surprising sources. Check out some of the musicians and composers featured below. When possible, links to their music are also listed. 

A one-hundredth birthday tribute to the late jazz artist explores his observations about humanity's discriminatory and violent behaviors as well as his efforts to forge world peace through music with the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Listen: The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra

Describes how Juan García Esquivel, a Mexican composer popular in the 1950s and 1960s, developed his experimental style of music, based on mariachi and other Mexican music, jazz, the human voice, and the use of unusual instruments.

Listen: Nuevo (featuring Jean Garcia Esquivel)

Eight-year-old Garang, orphaned by a civil war in Sudan, finds the inner strength to help lead other boys as they trek hundreds of miles seeking safety in Ethiopia, then Kenya, and finally in the United States.

Newly-arrived in the United States from Mexico, Carmen is apprehensive about going to school and learning English.

Today the American Library Association announced its Youth Book & Media Awards, including the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award and the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. The Young Adult Library Services Association bestows the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults annually to the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18). The Sibert Award is given by the Association for Library Service to Children to the most distinguished informational book for children.

For more information about other awards and their recipients, check the ALA website.

Help us recognize these honorees and winners by checking one out today.

2017 Sibert and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner

March. Book 3 by John Lewis

Yes, the same book won both awards!

Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and best-selling MARCH trilogy. Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, joins co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell to bring the lessons of history to vivid life for a new generation, urgently relevant for today's world. By the fall of 1963, the Civil Rights Movement has penetrated deep into the American consciousness, and for every step forward, the danger grows more intense: Jim Crow strikes back through legal tricks, intimidation, violence, and death. The only hope for lasting change is to give voice to the millions of Americans silenced by voter suppression:"One Man, One Vote."

To carry out their nonviolent revolution, Lewis and an army of young activists launch a series of innovative campaigns, including the Freedom Vote, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic Party waged live on national television. With these new struggles come new allies, new opponents, and an unpredictable new president who might be both at once. But fractures within the movement are deepening ... even as 25-year-old John Lewis prepares to risk everything in a historic showdown high above the Alabama river, in a town called Selma.

Our JBIO collection features a wide variety of great stories about real people. These subjects might be well-known, or relatively ordinary. They might be extroverted and exuberant or shy and passionate. Maybe the people in these tales look just like you, or maybe they're like no one you know. Meet someone new in 2017 by checking out some of the following biographies. The list begins with books for younger readers and ends with more advanced titles, but each story might hold wider appeal than its first impression.

A biography of the scientist known as the "Shark Lady," reveals how she turned a childhood passion into her life's work, devoting herself to studying sharks and educating the public on the graceful, clever sea creatures.

Recounts the life and accomplishments of the environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Music can inspire us during our worst times, or be the backbone of a celebration. Check out some of these stories about the people behind the music, and check the links for where to listen to their tunes.

Little Melba and her big trombone by Katheryn Russell-Brown

A biography of African American musician Melba Doretta Liston, a virtuoso musician who played the trombone and composed and arranged music for many of the great jazz musicians of the twentieth century. Includes afterword, discography, and sources. Her music can be interloaned through MeL.

With rhythmic swirls of words and pictures, Suzanne Slade and Stacy Innerst beautifully reveal just how brilliantly Gershwin reached inside his head to create his masterpiece, Rhapsody in Blue. It's a surprising and whirlwind composition of notes and sounds and one long wail of a clarinet-dazzling and daring, just like George Gershwin himself!

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