Join Ann Arbor Storytellers Guild members Beverly Black, Steve Daut, Laura Lee Hayes, and Jennifer Otto for a fun-filled hour of animal stories and rhymes for the Pre-K and early elementary crowd.

Take time before or after to explore the adjacent December exhibit Animals in Rhyme: The Friends of Mother Goose showcasing illustrated nursery rhymes from the University of Michigan Special Collections Library.

Monica Higman, a teacher with First Steps Washtenaw, leads a program of music and motion!

If you participated in the "Write On!" Short Story Contest for Grades 3-5 this year, or want to support those who did, join us for the final awards celebration! Jean Alicia Elster, author of The Colored Car, will present her advice for young writers, we'll announce the winners, and all may enjoy light refreshments.

Entries will be accepted from January 25 - February 12. For more information about the contest and for the complete guidelines please visit the contest website!

Robin Robinson of RobinSongs For Kids will lead this music, rhyme, and touch program for babies to pre-walkers.

No siblings, please

For this humor-filled presentation, Jeff will disclose how to live a happier, healthier, and fuller life …. but only if you’re NOT willing to pay the price. Based on his bestselling book, The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches: A Practical (and Fun) Guide to Enjoying Life More by Spending Less, this event will cover everything from how to decide what “enough” is for you (slaying your Enoughasaurus ) to tips for inoculating yourself against buyer’s remorse.

Yeager contends that for many Americans, the quality of their lives will increase and they’ll be happier if they spend and consume less, not more, as 5,000 commercial messages a day encourage us to do. A “cheapskate,” according to Yeager’s philosophy of life, is the polar opposite of a “conspicuous consumer.” Yeager encourages us to “Value time, and the things you can do with it, more than money, and the stuff you can buy with it.”

Jeff Yeager spent 24 years as a CEO and senior executive managing national nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC before launching his current career as a freelance writer, public speaker, and media personality in 2004. He specializes in an offbeat blend of original humor and practical advice for living a better life by spending and consuming less. He is AARP’s official Savings Expert, writing for AARP’s publications and hosting a weekly web show on YouTube — The Cheap Life — produced by AARP. He has also appeared on over 500 radio and TV shows on most major networks, and was an original cast member on TLC’s hit reality show Extreme Cheapskates.

He is the author of four popular books about frugal living, including his most recent, How to Retire the Cheapskate Way. This event includes a book signing and books will be for sale.

Learn what it takes to become an astronaut and complete cool space activities at Library Space Camp!

Music Made For Kids, Enjoyed By All...

The Wanna Bees play rockin’ and poppin’ songs catchy enough to grab the attention of kids, and cool enough for the whole family to enjoy. So come and see "what u can bee" with The Wanna Bees!

Buildings by architect Albert Kahn dominate Detroit and the University of Michigan.

In this lecture and slideshow, Detroit News art critic and author Michael H. Hodges surveys Kahn’s impact on city and school, and asks why this most-prolific of designers — once world-famous — has vanished from the architectural canon.

While best known for his revolutionary factory designs, like the Packard Plant, Kahn’s non-industrial output was huge as well. In Detroit, Kahn designed the Fisher, General Motors, Argonaut, Maccabees, Detroit News, Free Press, and Detroit Trust buildings, as well as the Art Deco lighthouse at the north end of Belle Isle. At U-M, he built Burton Memorial Tower, Hill Auditorium, the Natural History Museum, West Engineering, the Graduate Library, Natural Sciences, Angell Hall, the Ferry Gate and Clements Library (his favorite).

Michael H. Hodges covers art and area museums for The Detroit News, where he's worked since 1991. His book on Albert Kahn, which comes out in early 2017, is his second with Wayne State University Press. His first was Michigan’s Historic Railroad Stations.

Find out more about U-M architectural history and how the Michigan campus evolved when former U-M University Planner Fred Mayer visits AADL to discuss his book, recently published by University of Michigan Press: Setting For Excellence. This event includes a book signing and books will be for sale.

While there are times when the mix of old and new buildings and the chaotic activities of thousands of students can give a haphazard appearance to the university, campus planning has in fact become a highly refined form of architecture. This is demonstrated in a convincing fashion by this immensely informative and entertaining history of the evolution of the campuses of the University of Michigan.

By tracing the development of the Michigan campus from its early days to the present, within the context of the evolution of higher education in America, Mayer provides a strong argument for the importance of rigorous and enlightened campus planning as a critical element of the learning environment of the university. His comprehensive history of campus planning, illustrated with photos, maps, and diagrams from Michigan’s history, is an outstanding contribution to the university’s history as it approaches its bicentennial in 2017. Perhaps more important, Mayer’s book provides a valuable treatise on the evolution of campus planning as an architectural discipline.

Frederick W. Mayer was the University Planner for the University of Michigan from 1968 to 2003 and served as the campus planner for the university during an important period of its growth during the late twentieth century. A Henry Rutgers scholar at Rutgers and a Sears Fellow in City Planning at Cornell, Fred was a founding member of the Society for College and University Planning, and editor of Planning for Higher Education. He has written numerous articles and lectured extensively on the subject of college and university planning.

Learn about the ancient Chinese art of tangrams.

You will learn how to make animals, create several different objects, and design your own unique pieces of tangram art using colored paper!