On Tuesday, April 10, 2012, award-winning author Marty Essen presents his high-energy multi-media show, Around the World in 90 Minutes, at Schoolcraft College as part of the college's annual Earth Day celebrations. Essen's show is free and open to the public and will begin at 1 p.m. in the VisTaTech Center on the college's main campus in Livonia, Haggerty Road between Six and Seven Mile Roads.

Essen’s show features interesting facts, humorous stories, and the best of thousands of photos he took while traveling the world for his book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. It's the type of show where the audience has fun laughing at the stories, oohing and aahing at the photos, and then, when it's all done, they realize just how much they've learned.

Highlights of the Around the World in 90 Minutes show include:

• Amazing animal facts
• Debunking animal myths
• Cuddly wallaroos and spiny walking sticks
• Charging elephants and howling wolves
• Deadly snakes and friendly penguins
• Bizarre creatures and endangered species
• Swimming with piranhas
• Kayaking in the rainforest
• Hiking with the Porcupine caribou migration
• Rafting with humpback whales
• Surviving a hippo attack in Zimbabwe

Around the World in 90 Minutes began as a show Essen presented in bookstores as part of his first book tour. Later, after numerous refinements, the show took on a life of its own in colleges, museums, and nature centers across the United States. In fact, Marty Essen has been APCA’s (a major college activities association) #1 booked college speaker for 37 out of the past 41 months. Additionally, Campus Activities Magazine named Marty as one of their “Hot Speaker” picks for 2011.

Essen has won multiple book awards for travel/essay writing, including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Best Books Book Award, and the National Indie Excellence Award. In addition, he won a first place award at 2009 Green Book Festival in Los Angeles, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune named Cool Creatures, Hot Planet a top-10 “Green” book.