Kansas Books

Day combines a sophisticated prose background and lyrical stories to create first-rate fictions. Memorable characters are real cowboys from real ranches in Kansas, barkeeps who stew beaver meat in the winter, and a boy who meets a two persons who can only speak French. The heartland of Day is an exotic land not touched on by stereotypes in the mass media. Read this collection of stories that open up the mysteries of human experience, set against the great sky of the plains.

I just finished reading this book, and I was very moved by the author's honesty and vulnerability. While God has not called me to walk the path of spiritual singleness, I found many parallels to my path: infertility. It's so easy to imagine all the good that could come of God answering our prayers in the way we want them answered--and hard to see the good that might come from the way He is choosing to answer.
This book will be helpful to Christian women who are in this specific situation, but it has a wider audience as well. It will also minister to those who deal with other disappointments. The circumstances may differ, but the fact is, every Christian has to learn to accept painful gifts--the ones that we often have trouble seeing as a blessing. By sharing her own experiences as well as pertinent examples from the Bible, Jeri Odell helps you to do that.
So, if you know someone who is walking a "spiritually single" path--or if you are there yourself--I highly recommend this book!

This book was absolutely everything i was looking for and more. My sister and her family just recently bought a home in Wichita and are planning the big move from New Jersey for the end of July this summer. I wasn't so excited for them until I picked up this book. I thought Kansas...boring! But boy was I wrong, this book was so helpful in educating me about Wichita from every aspect of its past and present life. I learned interesting facts about the town as well as many cool and exciting new things that are available in Wichita for me to do when I go visit. I feel like I know the town as well as my own hometown now. I would recommend this book to anyone relocating to the area or even just for anyone who may want to visit or just learn more about an exciting and growing new city in Kansas.

Wichita is a great city, i love it!! great book

Very good material, to help someone who is starting a new church.

Dr. Johnson has written a moving portrait of Tinker v. Des Moines, a major 1960s Supreme Court decision. The "Struggle" that he discusses deals with the right of non-violent expression while in the confines of a public school. The narrative is richly grounded in newspaper articles, interviews, and letters to and from the primary individuals. This makes the story extremely personal and enlightening. An in-depth look into the workings of the Supreme Court may be the book's most profound contribution. Taking a controversial stand in time of war is never easy. The Tinker case shows that the heart of our democracy rests with those who dare to point us in a different direction.

I have read three of Nolan Carlson's books and I liked them all. I liked how he split the adventures of the boys into the chapters. I think that you Carlson is the only person who will start a secqil(spelling?) at the same place as the first book starts. I hope he writes more stories like that because those are the only one I will keep reading after I say I will stop. I really was interesting in his books.

In 1935 Kansas, Brady, 13 and his sister Sarah, 6 cope with many hardships. Their mother suffers from extreme asthma and their father's farm and livelihood are threatened by droughts and the Depression. Sarah also suffers from a severe form of autism; she is nonverbal and engages in typical self stimming behaviors. Brady describes his sister's condition as a disease, which it is not. Autism is a neurobiological condition that people knew very little about at that time. The term "autism" was coined in 1943 by Leo Kanner.

Their mother's illness worsens; desperate, their father Jack decides to take her to California where he feels she will recover. The Kansas dust storms aggravate her condition. Meanwhile, arrangements for Brady and Sarah to stay with their foster grandfather, Sheriff Bud and their Aunt Tilly have been made. They live in Sentinel Kansas, a day's drive from the family farm. The Sheriff had raised the children's mother and her brother after they were abandoned at ages 4 and 6.

Sheriff Bud and Aunt Tilly are delightful characters, as is Eddie, the friend Brady makes in Sentinel. Eddie has a pet crow who travels everywhere with him; in time, Brady comes to love the bird. The pair form a bond against the town bully, Raymond Blackburn. Raymond's father, Sam runs the town bank under a thundercloud of suspicion and he keeps bootleg liquor "rotgut" in his cellar. His son Raymond is the town bully. Fed with a sense of entitlement, he harasses Eddie and Brady. Raymond finally gets what he has coming when he mocks Sarah to Brady.

Sam Blackburn owns an illegal distillery; Kansas in 1935 was still a "dry" state, meaning that liquor was still forbidden. Although Prohibition officially ended in 1933, a few states remained "dry" after 1933. Blackie, Eddie's crow helps Eddie and Brady find a way to help put an end to that distillery. Using resourcefulness and guts, the boys, armed with their crow find a way to help clear up the sky of Blackburn's bootleg clouds.

Eddie, the second youngest in a large family copes with grinding poverty and abuse and an alcoholic father. The boy's mother works for the Blackburns. They withhold her wages, so Eddie and his brothers steal their chickens. Since Blackburn presses charges, Sheriff Bud reluctantly takes the boys in. Shortly after the boys' arrest, Eddie is the only child remaining in the home as their mother took a younger daughter and fled the father's drunken rages.

Aunt Tilly is truly a delightful character, as is Sheriff Bud. She prepares meals for all the inmates in the town's tiny jail; she takes Eddie in as much as he is willing to stay. To her credit, she does not fall for Raymond's fawning over Sarah; she tells Brady that the bully did not fool her one iota.

This is a beautiful story that might make you cry. It is about friendship; expansion of family; acceptance and genuine human kindness. Sheriff Bud does not condemn Eddie's father; rather, he describes him as a boy, before "alcohol got to him" and that the abuse did not come from an unloving father, but that it was "the alcohol that does not care." It is he comes through for the boys along with several freight hoppers and families down on their luck.

Readers learn about "Hoovervilles," communities of makeshift hovels named after President Hoover's "trickle down theory" of economics; hobo camps along bodies of water and freight hopping. Readers get a feel and taste for small town America in the Heartland during hard times; wet and dry states and the times this story was set. This book is a masterpiece that will resonate long in the hearts and minds of readers. This is a must read!

Pam's beautiful illustrations and personal stories make this a unique and inspirational book. Her quilts are fun and the instructions are clear. Wonderful book for those who enjoy making quilts, or those, like me, who enjoy looking at them.

If you've ever watched the University of Kansas Jayhawks play basketball you'll want this book. It's filled with memories of recent players and those who started the program under Phog Allen, Dick Harp, Ted Owens, Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self. Some reminiscences included are of James Naismith at Lawrence, the father of basketball. Reading this book is almost as good as being in Allen Fieldhouse and hearing the thousands cheer on the Jayhawks. Read about players and coaches who left KU for the NBA, how the KU players were recruited and how those players feel to this day about their experience on the hardwood at KU. Almost entirely upbeat with a few sour notes thrown in for good measure. By the end of the book, if you're a true blue Jayhawk you'll be bursting with pride and yelling, "GO BIG BLUE!"

If you're into watching, then by all means check out the VHS video, Century of Tradition: KU Basketball, available from Amazon.