Central Kansas Library System

Bagpipes are generally associated with the Celtic fringe of Europe, but one of the richest and most ethnically diverse bagpipe traditions can be found in Central Europe. In the Czech lands and in neighboring Bavaria this tradition once became marginalized and almost disregarded. Yet this historic musical form has survived and even managed to renew itself, to develop further on a regional scale - crossing national and linguistic borders. "Call of...

Following the one clue her friend Sylvie left behind before she went missing, Ema seeks to infiltrate the mysterious Midnight Guild to rescue Sylvie, despite a peculiar fear of shadows and the ability to predict events before they happen. The Graveyard Book meets Nevermoor in this ghostly tale about two friends, one murder mystery, and a world of intrigue. Find the courage to be extraordinary... Ema Vaskov has always felt different. In a family of...

"Reinmar of Bielawa, sometimes known as Reynevan, is a healer, a magician, and according to some, a charlatan. When a thoughtless indiscretion forces him to flee his home, he finds himself pursued not only by brothers bent on vengeance but by the Holy Inquisition. In a time when tensions between Hussite and Catholic countries are threatening to turn into war and mystical forces are gathering in the shadows, Reynevan's journey will lead him to the...

"From the great courts, glittering palaces, and war-ravaged battlefields of the seventeenth century comes the story of four spirited sisters and their glamorous mother, Elizabeth Stuart, granddaughter of the martyred Mary, Queen of Scots. Upon her father's ascension to the illustrious throne of England, Elizabeth Stuart was suddenly thrust from the poverty of unruly Scotland into the fairy-tale existence of a princess of great wealth and splendor....

When the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia in 1941, twelve-year-old Michael and his family are deported from Prague to the Terezin concentration camp, where his mother's will and ingenuity keep them from being transported to Auschwitz and certain death.

After his adventures in The Tower of Fools and Warriors of God, Reynevan is on the run again, harried by enemies--some human, and some mystical--at every turn. These are cruel and dangerous times for a man such as Reynevan, and to survive, he must set aside his history as a peaceful healer and idealist and play the brutal role of Hussite spy as crusades sweep through Silesia and the Czech Republic, and the world around him is forever changed.

"The captivating memoir of a spirited and glamorous young Jewish fashion designer who survived the Holocaust, with an afterword by her daughter, Helen Epstein"-- In the summer of 1942 Franci Rabinek-- designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws-- arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in Prague. It was the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the...

Named for the insignia of the First Infantry Division, this World War II combat film follows a handful of young GIs and their sergeant as they battle their way from North Africa through Sicily, Omaha Beach and Belgium to the ultimate horror of the concentration camp at Falkenau, Czechoslovakia.

Director Jan Sver�ak's Dark Blue World embraces sentimentality with such brio it is hard to resist. The film relays the little-known WWII story of Czech fighter pilots who escaped the Nazi occupation of their country to fight in Britain's Royal Air Force. Those who survived the battles were placed in work camps upon their return home by a then-entrenched, paranoid Communist regime. Sver�ak (Kolya) tacks back and forth between Franta (Ondrej Vetchy),...