Central Kansas Library System

Will James' cowboy autobiography Lone Cowboy tells how a little boy, hardly more than a baby, becomes an orphan in the West; how an old French trapper, whom the boy calls Bopy, adopts him and takes him on his long, long hunts; how when he is hardly more than a little boy Bopy is lost in an icy river and the child, heartbroken, rides down into the prairie region alone-on his own. James gives a complete and varied idea of how a cowboy lives. This...

"After sixteen novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her memoir tackles such difficult, poignant, and fascinating family memories as her paternal grandfather's shellshock, her mother's evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father's torturous assignment to an explosives team during...

"When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet [he] couldn't resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom, he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent thye cat on his way, imagining he...

When young Jim Hawkins finds a mysterious map in a dead sailor's sea trunk, it marks the start of a thrilling treasure hunt and a very dangerous adventure. Accompanied by the local doctor and squire, he sets off on the high seas as a cabin-boy, determined to find the buried hoard. But they are not alone in their quest, a band of pirates -- led by the enigmatic, one-legged Long John Silver -- will stop at nothing to take back what they believe is theirs....

"In January 1954, Joseph McCarthy was one of the most powerful members of the United States Senate. By the end of that year he had been censured by his colleagues, and his power was shattered. Ike and McCarthy is the dramatic story of how President Dwight Eisenhower worked behind the scenes to make this happen. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, anticommunist fervor was at a fever pitch. The loudest voice was McCarthy's, charging that the...

A self-taught artist, Blackbear Boskin (1921-1980) immortalized the spirit of a bygone era in his art. He rose to national prominence after his award-winning painting Prairie Fire was published in National Geographic magazine in 1955. His works were exhibited at museums across the country, including the National Gallery and Smithsonian Institution, and in 1965 he was the only American Indian invited to the White House Festival of Arts. His sculpture...

"Three years after his death at ninety-one, J.D. Salinger remains our most mythic writer. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) became an American classic, and he was for a long time the writer for The New Yorker. Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters introduced, by way of the Glass family, a new type in contemporary literature: the introspective, voluble cast of characters whose stage is the Upper East Side of New York. But fame proved...

"In the aftermath of World War II, the world shudders for a number of years. People try to find their way back to homes that are no longer there, or on to an uncertain future across the ocean. Some run from their deeds, and most get away. Among the millions across Europe looking for a new home is Elisabeth �Asbrink's father, a ten-year-old Hungarian Jewish boy in a refugee camp. The year 1947 marks a turning point in Europe, the Middle East, South...

"The periodic table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, greed, betrayal, and obsession. The fascinating tales in The Disappearing Spoon follow elements on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. Adapted for a middle grade audience, the young readers edition of The Disappearing...