Rosetta Stone: Oh! The languages you'll know

You'll be practicing right up!
You'll be speaking without fright!
You'll converse with the native speakers
much to your mutual delight.

One great aspect about Rosetta Stone is how it can foster communication in cross cultural language situations like Lin’s.  Lin’s parents immigrated to New York from China.  Lin has been educated in the US and speaks English, but her parents do not.  This is the global reality in America today.  Lin is using Rosetta Stone to learn both Chinese and Spanish.

And now the top 10 reasons why everyone should use Rosetta Stone:

1. You want to cross off your bucket list learning to speak Tagalog.
2. You are auditioning for the role of Hagen in Wagner’s German opera, Götterdämmerung.
3. You would like to know what the Fabio look-alike seated right in front of you on the Metra is whispering in Italian to his companion.
4. You have a reservation at Chez Moi, noted on CBS Chicago as one of the top French restaurants in Chicago, and want to impress your date with your command of the French language.
5. You have finished reading Steig Larsson's trilogy Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and now want to reread it in Swedish, the original language.
6. You have grown up in Lake Forest and would like to converse in Russian with your relatives in Moscow.
7. You have been promoted at work and are taking on a new Asia Pacific assignment and want to brush up on your Japanese and Korean.
8. You aspire to speak Arabic as part of the requirements for being a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State to one of the United Arab Emirates.
9. You are a lover of spoken languages, fluent in both English and Portuguese and now want to enrich your language experience by learning Hindi.
10. In all seriousness, learning new languages develops new areas of your mind and strengthens your brain’s natural abilities, as highlighted in the Huffington Post article, Your Mind on Language: How Bilingualism Boosts Your Brain.

   

Enjoy learning languages with Rosetta Stone today.

Staff Recommendations

Our Summer Reading programs may have finished, but there is still time to read before summer ends. If you’re looking for a book to take on vacation, whether it’s a print copy, eBook or audiobook, Lake Forest Library has lots of materials to choose from.  Call (847.810.4610), come in, or browse the catalog to see what’s available. 

Need a recommendation? This summer the Lake Forest Library staff read and listened to over 100 diferent books.  While The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin is probably our summer favorite and The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd a close second, the list includes other interesting and entertaining titles:

And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass

The Bones Beneath by Mark Billingham

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Invisible City by Julia Dahl

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

The Mission at Nuremberg by Tim Townsend

Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Imperative by Eric Lustbader

Shotgun Lovesongs by Nikolas Butler

The Stolen Chalice by Kitty Pilgrim

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by C. Alan Bradley

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

And if you’re staying in Lake Forest, why not sign up for a tour of our new Media Lab?  Reservations required.

Hope to see you soon.

Ravinia Wrap-up

The end of the season at Ravinia is no less exciting than what preceded it and the Library has plenty of recordings to extend your listening memories.

Buddy Guy (“Rhythm and Blues” and “Live at Legends”) appears August 19 followed August 21 by Yo-Yo Ma whose versatile talents are shown on “The Essential Yo-Yo Ma”, “A Playlist without Borders,” and “Goat Rodeo Sessions” (bluegrass).  Chicago violinist Rachel Barton Pine (“Capricho Latino” and “Violin Lullabies”) is on stage August 24.  Cap the season off with Carrie Underwood (“Blown Away”) September 6 and 7 or Misha and Cipa Dichter.  Misha is on three tracks of  “Liszt for Lovers”.  Don’t  miss Classic Albums Live performing the Beatles “Abbey Road”  September 13!

Ebooks for Kids

Ebooks aren’t just for grownups.  Today’s kids, who have grown up with ipads in their cribs, can take advantage of  the availabiity of free ebooks, eaudio books, & animated books.  Lake Forest Library offers a substantial collection of digital material and streaming video for the juvenile reader.  My Media Mall,  one of our two downloadable book services, features  over 2000 children's items. Browsing is easy with their KidsCollection eReading Room.   Want to enter The Busy World of Richard Scarry?  Or have some humorous adventures with Paddington Bear? 

 “Wonder” if the fantastic book Wonder is available as an ebook? Here it is in our catalog:

                                                                Select the downloadable ebook

  Or you can browse/search directly in the My Media Mall . 

                                            Click on Downloads

 We also offer a select group of juvenile ebooks through 3M  - currently almost 700 titles and growing.  Exclusively through 3M is  The Julian Chapter: a Wonder Story   telling the story from Auggie’s classmate’s point of view. 
Fans of the LEGEND  dystopian series can find a 2 new stories in Life Before Legend  only in My Media Mall.  

In addition to our library sources, try these free resources for a variety of reading material.  The Chicago History Museum’s Great Chicago Stories offers a small collection of professionally written children’s fiction bringing Chicago history to life.

If you are looking for a classic  like Tom Sawyer, many are in the public domain and/or  have been digitized by  Project Gutenberg .  Among their Book categories are several with classic and vintage children's books such as The Bobbsey Twins or Tom Swift, authors such as Louisa May Alcott and L. Frank Baum.  Browse these for some nostalgia:   

Children’s Book Series  

Children’s Literature Bookshelf  
These books can be read online or saved in cloud storage such as Google Drive, Dropbox & icloud.

Don't forget magazines.  Hightlights Magazine for Kids has a free online version with animated stories, poetry, puzzles, science experiments and comics with old favorites like Goofus & Gallant and the Timbertoes.