Central Kansas Library System

A novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there...

The best-selling author of Alice's Tulips and other popular novels, Sandra Dallas exhibits a well-honed talent for evoking the past. In The Persian Pickle Club, Dallas transports listeners to 1930s Kansas, where a club of quilters welcomes a new member-and then must turn to each other for support when a startling secret comes to light. "A colorful exploration of Depression-era Kansas and the meaning of friendship."-New York Times Book Review

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota's Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O'Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits constantly earn him the superintendent's wrath. Odie and his brother, Albert, are the only white faces among the hundreds of Native American children at the school. After...

This charming, old-fashioned story of a girl growing up during the depression will convince you that anything is possible. Against a backdrop of authentic hardship and despair, 13-year-old Virginia Eade discovers the true source of happiness. A doctor's daughter, Virginia spends her days dreaming of romance with "the two Charlies"-Charles Lindburgh and Charlie Chaplin. Soon Virginia is forced to give up her room to less fortunate relatives, and failed...

With the land to hold them together, nothing can tear the Logans apart. Why is the land so important to Cassie's family? It takes the events of one turbulent year -- the year of the night riders and the burnings, the year a white girl humiliates Cassie in public simply because she is black -- to show Cassie that having a place of their own is the Logan family's lifeblood. It is the land that gives the Logans their courage and pride, for no matter...

Against all odds, a veterinary student (Robert Pattinson) and a beautiful circus performer from a bygone era (Reese Witherspoon) meet and fall in love through their shared compassion for a special elephant. But their secret romance incurs the wrath of her dangerously volatile husband (Christoph Waltz).

Constance Schulz has brought together a diverse array of photographs from three extensive documentary projects: the Farm Security Administration, the Office of War Information, and Standard Oil of New Jersey. The result is a unique visual record of American life by photographers Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, Edwin and Louise Rosskam, and Charles Rotkin. Collectively, their work has immortalized the faces...

Strong-willed Deborah Nelson has already endured much in her life. As the Great Depression invades northwest Kansas in 1930, Deborah’s denial cannot stop the raw emotions that spread their pain through her once predictable life. Christian, her husband of six years, has disappeared without a trace, leaving Deborah to care for their boys and farm in a man’s world—one made even more challenging by threatening, unpredictable weather. Determined...

In the early 1930s in western Kansas, a woman whose husband is missing must partner with her neighbors to share labor and resources and survive amid desperate times.