Kansas Books

My kids love this series! The story is suspenseful and easy to read at the same time. I'm always looking for good books that will keep my son's attention. As a reluctant reader, my son needs stories with a tight plot and lots of action, and it's sometimes hard to find books he will like. But he really loves the Prairie Skies series. And I know it will help both my kids understand this period of history a lot better.

Here is another book by Hopkinson, but this time a chapter book story for older elementary. This story is about a boy whose family is fighting in the Civil War and his personal experience with finding a runaway slave. The book contains interesting pencil drawings to illustrate the story. Besides the obvious bridge to Civil War history, the availability of multiple books by this author could enable an author study in this case.

Pioneer Naturalist on the Plains.. is more than the story of Elam Bartholomew. His diaries not only gives the reader an insightful look at this remarkable man, we are given a spectacular view of pioneer life. The book does what novels cannot. We see and feel what is like to live the pioneer life through the eyes of Elam. As he carves out a life for his family on the wild frontier, the reader lives his triumphs and tragedies. Anybody interested in the true pioneer spirit of America will find this book a fascinating read.

elam bartholomew kept copious quantities on notes his entire life about the daily adventures of living in western kansas. his life span encompassed travel by horse, then train, then automobile not to mention the advent of electricity and a sod home. a deep and abiding devotion to god country and family propelled this tough individualist thru life. his hobby of plant life and cultures turned into his live work. but his dairy entries on a daily basis opens a window to the reader to feel and experience life on the frontier of america

This book is a wonderful book!!! It really is a great adults book. You feel like one of the gobblers! This would make a great Rob Reiner movie!

The Prairie Adventures of Turk and the Gobblers will keep you in stitches, long after the last page is read. This novel is entertainment at its best!

This book is all the more shocking when you realize that RIGHT NOW the taxpayer, thanks to credulous politicians like Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Dan Burton and others, is being made to pay for "medical care" that is every bit as crazy as the things in this book. Someday someone will write a book like this but it will be about *present-day* nonsense, including a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (the only center in the NIH oriented around the needs of practitioners - CAM practitioners in this case - as opposed to the needs of patients) that pays for psychic power therapy, a White House Commission on CAM headed by a former devotee of the Bhagwan guru whose group launched a biological attack in Oregon, and on and on ...

We have had a boom in interest in "alternative health care" recently, but that interest has been with us ever since there has been a medical establishment to which there could be "alternatives." In the American Midwest in the 1930s three alternative healers began a rise to financial, social, and political power. _Quacks & Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey_ (University Press of Kansas) by Eric S. Juhnke documents the rise and fall of all three medical conmen, and gives a lesson in the dangers of credulousness.

John Brinkley was a licensed doctor, having graduated from a diploma mill. He latched on to the "gland transplant" experiments done on animals, and believed that transplanting animal glands into humans was a key for rejuvenation. "A man is as old as his glands, and his glands are as old as his sex glands," he proclaimed. Male goats were the randiest animals, so they were the tissue donors, but they turned out to be just the thing to boost female fertility and development of the bust, too. He compared himself to Jesus, gave sermons, and demonized the American Medical Association. Norman Baker specialized in cancer cures. He worked as a machinist and in vaudeville before settling down in Muscatine, Iowa. He persuaded city officials to let him start a radio station that would present honest-to-goodness down home programs as opposed to the high-brow fare coming from the cities. Baker called Morris Fishbein, the head of the AMA, the "Jewish dominator of the medical trust of America," and insisted that his clinic was a bastion for personal freedom and against the evils of urban industrialism. Harry Hoxsey proved to have the most staying power. He specialized in herbal cancer cures as well. Not a physician, he was able to enroll renegade physicians into his service, and he was bankrolled by an evangelist minister. In Dallas, he enjoyed poker, nightclubs, and womanizing, and his diatribes against interference by the AMA and the government won him friends from the political right wing.

Juhnke's tales of these colorful characters are great fun to read, even though the rascals bilked many of their patients of money and sometimes their lives. The eventual success of the AMA against them is not a pure victory; the shortcomings of the AMA at the time are examined here, too. Few people remember these quacks now. The towns that boosted them because they brought in business now view them as an embarrassing part of their histories. It is important that Juhnke has brought them again to our attention. We may no longer have such manifestations as goat gland transplants, but anyone who watches television knows that herbal cures, homeopathy, and healing magnets are still taking money from the gullible. There is still a large group of potential patients who view organized medicine (and governmental regulation of medical treatment) as some sort of conspiracy, and of course there are plenty of faith healers who are glad to have their flocks doubting the efficacy of regular medical treatment. People are finding it harder to pay for physicians, and drug costs are up. Brinkley, Baker, and Hoxsey may have eventually lost their power and their millions, but Juhnke's useful study reminds us that there are always healers ready to take their place.

This book is simply outstanding for anybody who has an interest in how the military manages media relations or who wants a different perspective on the Vietnam War. An abridgement of Hammond's two-volume set, this book is still packed with details covering the war from start to finish, providing lessons that remain relevant for today's changing battlefield. As one who is involved in media relations for a living, there's hardly a page in the book that isn't highlighted for future reference. And as one who has read several books on Vietnam, covering everything from tactical operations to strategic objectives, this book put the war in perspective for me as no other book has. However, as I was pouring over every page and sharing what I learned with those around me, one of my colleagues said he had read it as well and found it one of the most laborious books he had ever opened. So perhaps it is not for everybody, but it's a book I will return to again and again as I continue to study the unique relationship forged between the military and the media. And I am also ordering the two-volume set so I can find the even greater detail that was left out of this book.

This is a terrifically important analysis of the way the military and the press interacted during the Vietnam War. Mr. Hammond covers most of the important media events and reports important details of the statements and actions of those in the government and the military as well as those in the press. He also provides keen insight into the implications of those interactions and the effects they hand on later events.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I wish I could give it six stars. It is a book that anyone who wants to understand anything at all about the Vietnam War simply has to read. The articles in the two volumes of the Library of America series provide valuable background for this book and I think they should be read first. But even without them any reader would get a great deal from this book.

There are nearly fifty pages of notes, and index, and a generous number of pictures of the main events and participants. Just a wonderful achievement. Thanks to Mr. Hammond!

This is a highly readable and engaging book on the topic, covering the history of abortion laws from early 1800s to the Clinton years. To explain the legal shifts throughout those 200 years, the authors describe the social, political, religious and scientific forces that have lead up to each turning point, and how those shifts in turn have influenced further shifts in a seemingly never ending chain. They do so by presenting the various sides of the debate in an even-handed and concise manner, without losing depth on the one hand and without getting bogged down with technicalities on the other. What I found of particular interest was the behind-the-scenes debates of the Justices both in Griswold v. Connecticut and in Roe v. Wade that shed light on their final decision.

One of many controversial Supreme court cases in the United States is the case of Roe v Wade. Norma McCourvey was a 23 year old pregnant divorced women. Norma took on the name of Jane Roe to secure her identity infont of the public. Roe lived in the state of Texas. She wanted to terminate her pregnancy the only obstacle was that with in the state of Texas a women was not allowed to have an abortion unless her life depended on it.Roe was pregnant from an affair she had which caused her marriage to fail. Roe took the case to the Supreme court alleging that her rights were being violated and that under the amendments 1,4 9 and 14 she had a choice. The attorneys who would carry on this case were two young women named Sarh Weddington adn Linda Coffee. Both had recently graduated from the University of Texas. Sarah at the time was also pregnant,but would go on and have the child. Attorney Henry Wade was force with the decision to allow Norma nad other women to have an abortion. Two years after the case was presented the court decided that in fact a womens right to choose on what to do with her body was hers and nobody else.
I would reccomend this book to everyone who is interested in politics. Due to the fact that no matter how someone feels towards a certain topic you may never know what your decision might be. I might one day become a lawyer and reading this book opened my eyes ;to realize that I can not allow my morals and beliefs to get in the way of my profession. I would also reccomend this book to anyone who has strong feelings on whether abortion should be legal or not. Finally I just enjoyed this book because although abortion is a very controversial topic it is also one a very easy book to read and comprehend.

I recently checked this book out for my daughters from our local library. They loved seeing about all the things that make Kansas great. We enjoyed it so much that I'm purchasing one for us and one to give as a gift to a friend. Very educational for older readers too!

I purchased this book as a gift for the library where my step-daughter works. I enjoy books on Kansas so much I think the local libraries should have as many as possible in their collections.

Also available in a hardcover edition (1589010000, $39.95), School Board Battles: The Christian Right In Local Politics by Melisa M. Deckman (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Washington College, Chesterton, Maryland) examines ongoing local school board elections in America, and their effect upon shaping the culture and educational curriculum of the nation, a phenomenon that gaind widespread attention when the Kansas state school board, led by outspoken Christians, voted to delete evolution from the state's science curriculum and standardized tests. Especially focusing upon the electoral success of Christian Right school board candidates, School Board Battles strives to reveal why conservative Christians run for school boards, the extent of the Christian Right's influence upon school boards, and the manner in which conservative Christians in general tend to govern. A critical and insightful study of turbulent struggles to determine what will be taught to America's next generation.

Washington College Assistant Professor Melissa M. Deckman delivers readers a fresh new portrait of the Christian right which, although still critical of their ultimate end goals, wants to understand how they were able to achieve their successes or not.

Differing from the organizational research reports and partisan titles which already flood the market, Deckman's book has readers instead consider why the religious right enjoys so much electoral success even if a majority of American voters do not formally appear to support their ideas.

She then wants us to consider how waging a campaign/counter campaign against these candidates and public officials is literally impossible when we actually do not know about the people who we want to run against.

The thesis of Deckman's book is that both sides in a community demonize each other in the process of school board and local elections in an attempt to win support from undecided voters. The Christian right is at once both more similar and more complex than previous attack campaigns/counter-responses publicly have conceded. Articulating this complex nature will then enable myself and others to win more campaigns and more effectively sell our own policies to that swing public.

Starting out with wanting to make major change, the Christian right candidates and/or elected officials subsequently are required to alter their grand world views in order to be a part of the system which they ultimately seek to change. Built on compromise, the American political system is subsequently not receptive to radical changes which these people (and other candidates) would like to make. Our campaign portrayals of these people might therefore indicate what they would like to do, but it does not actually acknowledge what they are permitted to do; held in check by the American government's system of checks and balances.

Deckman's data includes case studies of elections held in Fairfax County Virginia and Garret County Maryland. These case studies prove that although they share some important group characteristics and goals, not all Christian right campaigns and then the candidates who run them are virtual `carbon copies' of each other. A vulnerability to internal dissent among various religious right candidates and office holders further lessens their being the `mighty boogeyman' of political jargon.

She also suggests that both the `far right' candidates and my beloved liberal counterparts are much more alike than we actually are different. The research in this book uncovers that non-religious right school board candidates are also likely to be religiously affiliated and also are more likely to come from the community elite---who can afford to run in an election and hold public office. We have more in common with each other than we have previously thought and/or let on in campaigns and debates.

Although I also read the more conventional broadsides against the right, and tend to agree with the left, Deckman's book is a critical step for defeating Christian right candidates.

Silence is a difficult concept for us to understand, especially when we really need to hear from God. Silent God teaches us to listen through the silence when God seems so far away- a concept I also explore in my book Direction: Discernment for the Decisions of Your Life. In his book, Bentz has not only given us answers to the question of God's silences, but also tools for hearing God in the midst of the noise of everyday life.

Joseph Bentz is one of my favorite authors, and this is one of his very best books. It's true: God sometimes seems silent, and distant, and preoccupied, and slow-to-respond. In this book, as always, Bentz is unfailingly honest. But instead of whining and complaining, he helps all of us to wrestle with God's silence by putting it into its biblical context, expanding our understanding of the whys and hows, and showing us what we can do while we wait and listen. Make no mistake: even though the topic is daunting, this book is surprisingly cheerful. The clear writing, fitting examples, practical helps, and great stories make this book a joy from cover to cover. And it will lead to breakthroughs. Recommended for anyone who ever worried about hearing the voice of God.

This is an excellent account of how our forefathers dealt with the day-to-day struggles in the frontier. Excellent as history, entertaining as drama, it's hard to put down.

At 550 pages, this classic social history of the first decades of settlement in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas is informative, entertaining, sometimes poignant, and one heck of a read. For anyone whose knowledge of this period is as limited as mine, it's also full of surprises -- lots of them. Historian Everett Dick dips into a substantial collection of documents, listed in his 10-page bibliography, and organizes what he's found into 35 chapters, each on a different subject, including the sod house of the title, homesteading, prairie towns, vigilante justice, farmers vs. cattlemen, extremes of weather, Indians, hunting and trapping, the railroad, sports, education, the church, journalism, doctors, lawyers, and entertainment. And that covers only about half of them.

Settlement moved quickly and furiously across the Missouri River, while the federal government was still negotiating the relocation of the current residents, i.e. Native Americans, then spread across the territories in a surge of speculation and rapid development in a series of booms and busts. Cliches and stereotypes from movies and television quickly fall left, right, and center, as the author revels in the rich tapestry of human endeavors portrayed against a raw, still alien landscape. Law and order were virtually nonexistent, and a recurring theme in the book is the frequency of scams, fraud, graft, and chicanery of all kinds that were the order of the day. In such an environment, the carrying of weapons was universal, and differences of opinion were normally settled with bloodshed and no questions asked afterwards.

There is the land rush, featuring claim jumpers and speculators with no interest in tilling the soil or putting down roots but turning a quick buck, usually in total violation of whatever law existed at the time. There are the wild cat banks, printing their own money, all of it eventually worthless to those left holding it. There are the crooked investment schemes that raised capital for towns that were never built. Prairie communities lure railroad companies to build lines in their direction with outlays of cash. Elections are rigged, bribes paid, and blood spilled over the location of county seats. Phony local governments elect themselves into office and after borrowing money for public projects abscond with the funds and leave the area's legitimate settlers under a crushing load of debt. And on and on. It's a fascinating account of the frontier as a kind of bonfire of vanities.

But this is only one theme in the book. There are many others, and much to relish in descriptions of the daily life of more ordinary folks who are typically jacks of all trades, short of cash, either hard-working or hard-drinking, often overwhelmed by the isolation of their circumstances. It's a delight, for instance, to read of country and small town pastimes and pleasures from baseball to dances that go until sunup.

Given the book's origins in the 1930s, it tends to neglect the lives of women (an oversight that has been corrected in many more recent books), and while it seems to want to give a balanced view of Indians, it tends to focus its interests elsewhere. Unfortunately, the treatment of African Americans is somewhat condescending. Those faults aside, the book is a page-turner, especially for anyone who, as I did, grew up in this part of the world with only a glimmer of an idea of its actual history.