Genealogy

Family Research Tips

Read all about it! Find your McHenry County ancestors in the newspaper McHenry County early newspapers were filled with interesting tidbits that can help you fill in the details in your family history. From as early as 1846, with the Illinois Republican, McHenry County residents could read news from around the country and keep up with the affairs of the […]

Genealogy

Local History Notes

Naming the Village of Algonquin The village was first known as Cornish’s Ferry, from Dr. A. B. Cornish, an early settler near the ford above mentioned [Crystal Lake inlet to the Fox River]. Later, when a considerable settlement had grown up, by vote of the inhabitants the name Osceola was adopted. But it was learned that there was already a […]

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Genealogy

Welcome back to Genealogy at AAPLD

Welcome back! Beginning in April, join us for a monthly Genealogy Interest Group. Just getting started or stuck at a brick wall? This group is for you! Learn about genealogy topics and resources, and get help with your family research. Bring your genealogy questions and dig into the library’s online resources (and more!). Check the LIBRARY NEWSLETTER  for these programs and […]

Library Reads (03/17/2022): The Dutch House
Book Clubs

Library Reads (03/17/2022): The Dutch House

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to build an immense real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son, Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled by their stepmother from the house where they grew up. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is each other. It is this unshakable bond that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures. […]

Check out 2022 Oscar Nominated films!
Movies

Check out 2022 Oscar Nominated films!

Oscar season is here, and it’s time to catch up on nominated films you may have missed. Catch some of this year’s best movies and performances at no cost at all– thanks to the power of your library card! We’ve profiled the films in our collection that have received Oscar nods, and also included the categories in which they’ve been […]

Enjoying the Classics (03/16/2022): The Clan of the Cave Bear
Book Clubs

Enjoying the Classics (03/16/2022): The Clan of the Cave Bear

Through Jean M. Auel’s magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves The Clan of the Cave Bear.

A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly—she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza’s way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge. […]

The Nail Biters (03/15/2022): The Holdout
Book Clubs

The Nail Biters (03/15/2022): The Holdout

It’s the most sensational case of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar real estate fortune, vanishes on her way home from school, and her teacher, Bobby Nock, a twenty-five-year-old African American man, is the prime suspect. The subsequent trial taps straight into America’s most pressing preoccupations: race, class, sex, law enforcement, and the lurid sins of the rich and famous. It’s an open-and-shut case for the prosecution, and a quick conviction seems all but guaranteed—until Maya Seale, a young woman on the jury, convinced of Nock’s innocence, persuades the rest of the jurors to return the verdict of not guilty, a controversial decision that will change all their lives forever.

Flash forward ten years. A true-crime docuseries reassembles the jury, with particular focus on Maya, now a defense attorney herself. When one of the jurors is found dead in Maya’s hotel room, all evidence points to her as the killer. Now, she must prove her own innocence—by getting to the bottom of a case that is far from closed.

As the present-day murder investigation entwines with the story of what really happened during their deliberation, told by each of the jurors in turn, the secrets they have all been keeping threaten to come out—with drastic consequences for all involved. […]

Forever Young (03/14/2022): Moxie
Book Clubs

Forever Young (03/14/2022): Moxie

Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

Viv’s mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you wanna riot! […]