Central Kansas Library System

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

Frank answers questions by examining the conservative revolution in his home state, of Kansas.

Shortly after the Civil War, a black family travels to Kansas to take advantage of the free land offered through the Homestead Act.

In the summer of 1935 thirteen-year-old Brady and his little sister are sent to live with their grandfather in Kansas. By the end of the summer Brady will know the true meaning of family.

After years of separation, English-born Emmaline Bradford is shocked by the conditions on Geoffrey's Kansas sheep ranch and wishes to return to England immediately. But Geoffrey offers a compromise: If Emmaline promises to stay until spring, he'll pay her return fare if she decides to go back to her home country. When spring arrives, will Emmaline return to England, or will she marry Geoffrey and carve out a life with him in Kansas?

Though it's not quite the motherland, Glasglow, Kansas, makes a fine home for Scotsman Rob MacPherson and his son Ewan. As the elder MacPherson blows up whiskey stills in his attempts to make a single-malt Scotch, Ewan falls in love at twelve years of age with Shirley Porter. There's no turning back for Ewan. From that moment on, his heart has set its course. Through adolescence and into adulthood, through becoming a high school teacher, bagpipe instructor,...

"To understand why people say 'Dear old Kansas!" is to understand that Kansas is no mere geographical expression, but a 'state of mind,' a religion, and a philosophy in one," writes historian Carl Becker in the classic 1910 essay that leads off this volume. Like Becker, the twelve other essayists and four poets try to map the spiritual topography of Kansas and explain why this particular patch of prairie is so dear. They share the conviction that...

This book highlights the importance of Kansas' opera houses to the cultural and social development of Kansas during the last half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. The types of civic and cultural entertainments that occurred in these structures and the actors who graced their stages are discussed. A detailed listing of 900 opera houses located in more than 400 Kansas communities and the activities that were held there, from...