Kansas Books

A refreshing look at dealing honestly with our children. Down to earth and succinct, it helps us realize how to achieve an utmost commincation with these highly intelligent humans, called children. A father himslef, his ability to delve deeply into the main-stream emotions of our next generation is highly inspiring. As a teen counselor, I found this most enlightening, and so encouraging.

This was a requried book for a class but it was a great resource for my time with God, enhancing my relationship God and providing a greater desire to grow.

Free advertisement for restaurants. Most recipes generic like chicken fried steak. Can be found in any cookbook. Then things like Wild Boar Lolly Pops with sweet potato hash. Uses Wild Boar and a huckle berry gastric things that everyone uses?? Also whole pages of advertisements. I didn't pay to buy their self promotion.

This is a wonderful cookbook! We love to dine out in KC but occasionally we like to cook at home and try new recipes. Now we can try the foods from the places we frequent. Great job, we love it!

I'm pleased to have William Kloefkorn's second volume of his memoir. He writes as he speaks, with humor. His memoir, tied to the four elements, is creative and a novel way to view a life through an illustrative story. I'm never disappointed in reading Kloefkorn.

Joan McAfee's Riddle Of The Lost Gold is a superbly presented historical novel about Colonel George Armstrong Custer's mission at Fort Hays. Vividly characterized and dynamically written, Riddle Of The Lost Gold follows a persistent young teenager and her friend who seek to solve an enigma handed through generations since Custer's 1867 battle. An involving story for young adults and historical fiction buffs, Riddle Of The Lost Gold is enthusiastically recommended for school and community fiction collections for young readers.

Featuring five maps, extensive notes, exhaustive source lists, and a comprehensive index, "The Rise And Fall Of Indian Country, 1825-1855 by William E. Unrau (Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Wichita State University) is a superbly written, thirty year history of the impact of Section 1 of the 1834 Act regarding the establishment of 'Indian Country', a territory set aside as a place for native American survival and improvement, protected against white settlement and encroachment, that originally encompassed more than half of the Louisiana Purchase stretching from the Red River to the headwaters of the Missouri River. What Professor Unrau's research has documented is a three decade governmental complicity in disregard of federal regulation in order to facilitate white settlement and the development of the trans-Missouri West. An important and strongly recommended addition to American Western History and Native American Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists, "The Rise And Fall Of Indian Country, 1825-1855" is the chronicled and documented story of land-hungry whites moving to claim Native American treaty lands and how subsequent legislation by complicit lawmakers and governmental bureaucrats negated the originally promised permanence of 'set aside' Native American lands.

Chang Guo-t'ao (Zhang Guotao) was a founder of the Chinese Communist Party and one of its major leaders until he fell out with Mao Zedong during the Long March, and finally left the Party to settle down in the US. Although he had his own ax to grind, his memoirs are the best account of the functioning of the Chinese Communist Party during its early stages. Unfortunately, the book is no longer available outside specialized libraries.Its English edition was published about 20 years ago, a new edition would be welcomed by anybody interested in the history of one of the most important nations in our world. Barbara Barnouin

Although Ken Davis was primarily a biographer and historian, he became an environmentalist to write this book in response to the 1951 floods on the Kansas River (Kaw to the natives). Its working title, which is more descriptive of the contents, was "How To Think About a River." He dropped it, he explained, because he wouldn't presume to tell a reader how to think about anything. But it includes a lyrical description of the geography and history of the river's watershed in what many wrongly think of as a rather uninteresting state. It shows how land, water, and atmosphere are parts of a single system. And it is a nice introduction to the politics of water resources. I still recommend it to students interested in environmental journalism.

My book is tattered because I've used it so much. I like it because it covers all the common species of the southern plains. In addition, it gives plant range and habitat information to aid in identification. Plus the pictures are top notch.

The preface from Edwin C. Bearss, Historian Emeritus of the National Park Service sets out in one sentence the very basis of this book: "The observant Strong "tells it like it is" out on the western border." This diary details a war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt; a story about Union Soldiers, white and "darky" (Colored U.S. Infantry units), fighting Confederates, Bushwhackers, Indians, along with the cold of one of the coldest winters in years, lack of food, and just plain old boredom.
This book details a fight that few know about from the War Between the States: that of fighting in the Trans-Mississippi, the country west of the Mississippi River. There are numerous books on the war that takes place in Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas; these are nearly always by officers although you occasionally find one by an enlisted man. But when it comes to the Trans-Mississippi, there are few books on the War west of the Mississippi. This one is a real gem. It was so easy to place myself in the shoes of Private Strong as he talks about marching 12, 18, 20 and sometimes more miles a day, or having to carry all his supplies on his back and finding out he can get by on a blanket and spare shirt, burning what he does not want to carry, or the times he was hungry because of a lack of food. This book was a real delight because so many of the place names are still familiar to us today, as Strong hikes the road from Fort Scott, through Cowskin Prairie by Maysville, Cincinnati, Cane Hill, Fort Smith, Van Buren, and other marches over a two year period to Little Rock, Washington, Camden, Hot Springs, Ozark, Indian Territory, and other places. It details a life of seemingly needless drill, standing guard duty, foraging for food, guarding convoys out collecting hay, going to watch the "darkies" drill and parade (including the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry). He even mentions playing baseball, as a way to drive away thoughts of hunger! But this is the diary of a soldier. He writes about skirmishes and battles such as Massard Prairie outside Fort Smith, Jenkins Ferry, fighting bushwhackers all over Arkansas. Strong comments on the ability of the Colored Infantry to stand and fight, and seems to be impressed with them as fellow soldiers, expressing anger over the execution of them and their white officers at the fighting near Jenkins Ferry. "April 19 (1864) They killed after our boys surrendered the wounded that had been put in ambulances. If this is true no punishment is too great for them." One memorable event is floating on the Arkansas River, on the steamer J.R. Williams, which was seized near Fort Coffee (north of the town of Spiro, Oklahoma) by men under Confederate General Stand Watie while it was sailing to Fort Gibson, and his escape, evasion, and return to Fort Smith. It details the hunger of the civilians, deprivations by bushwhackers on the countryside, the executions of a few who are captured, having the blues from not receiving any mail from friends or family, and just being bone-tired weary from long marches in the cold, or in the rain and being soaked to the skin while on campaign to seek out and fight the Rebel Army. Strong writes about the joy of hearing about the surrender of Lee in Virginia, Kirby Smith seeking terms of surrender down near the Texas/Arkansas Border; and the mourning caused by the assassination of President Lincoln. Finally, the diary winds down as Strong writes about the long wait to be demobilized and his journey back to Kansas and his family.
This is a short diary, the book being less than 100 pages covering Private Strong's time as a soldier from his enlistment in August, 1862 to July 18, 1865, when he was mustered out and received his final pay. Professor Tom Wing, who teaches history at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, has inserted numerous footnotes detailing information about people, places and fights that Strong mentions in his diary, and some of these folks ended up fighting in other areas of the country. It was an easy read, and a most enjoyable book. It certainly is an important book because of the level of detail about the experiences of a soldier in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, who fought in the Western part of Arkansas.