True Grit at the Topeka Library

true grit today on tv are for example through grants and kate mcintyre and today we'll look at the movies and dozens of activities taking place this month at the city that's on the county public library if there are big reed of true grit and national endowment for the arts program designed to encourage a whole community to read the same books we're heading to pick through the tail fourteen year old mattie ross whose father is murdered by a ranch hand named tom chaney she fact that from arkansas into indian territory to seek revenge for her father's death but she knows she can't do it alone that's when she meets up with deputy marshal rooster cogburn our shows to combine and i'll go after the murder charge how do you like that we see that is correct that's from the nineteen sixty nine movie classic true grit

based on the nineteen sixty eight book by charles portis topeka sunny county public library is selling that felt hosting book discussions and much more this month for their big reed of true grit i met with book evangelist lizza stately this week and asked her about the appeal a big reed i think it's a big to do which i think people find exciting to get excited about a book and i think finding other people who are reading the same book as you're talking about it is exciting to people which are to choose books that are very discuss of all that leave you wanting to talk to other people about it and i think the more you talk about books with other people the rich or your experiences and degreed set that experience a pre it happen partly about true grit and why the typically sunny county public library chose this book for this year's big rate they had a vote and i will not say i didn't campaign for true grit because i did not campaigned heavily with customers said they were voting on here i think we should focus our body also got people excited about choosing the book together and thinking

about what would be a good fun thing to read and discuss together have events around them so they did as you put it to a vote though the committee narrow it down to a few choices and then let the public options tell me why you campaign for true grit than it's one of my favorite books of all time and i knew that it would be an even better book i knew when everybody else thought about it and if we are back to talk about why is that one of your favorite books of all time is kind of an unusual choice i ride it around the same time and that age that mattie ross is fourteen in the book and i read around that time and that's when it became one of my favorite books of all time let's talk about the character of mattie ross she's fourteen years old she is what the aisle what is about that character that makes her such a great protagonist i think that mattie ross is very sure of herself in his she is i think that's what i admired about her when i was fourteen and i also let them know that suspense

thriller i love that this book is told by an older mattie ross say you know everything turns out basically a penny um you know that you know her team decisions that their outlook in her life and she's content with them without getting into any spoilers let's just talk a bit about the plot of the book if you haven't read the book true grit yet it's basically the story of fourteen year old mattie ross who it's about to try to seek revenge for her father's death or seek justice for her father's death most definitely and i think that's not a spoiler that on the first sentence so if you haven't read the first sentence you showed i think that as that but she goes on that journey seen the journey with her unseen how she approaches her revenge for her father's death with an extreme single mindedness on how she uses other people in the world to help her it's a great journey it's a great story and among those other people in the world is of course research cogburn who was so

immortalize for many of us and by john wayne in the movie from nineteen sixty nine i believe it is a little bit about mr cockburn and how the two of them connect rooster cogburn certainly when i was reading this are fourteen was not the kind of me and i should be talking to and yet when mattie ross approaches him she approaches her because she's looking for the meanest most single minded person she can find to help her with her task i am so i thought for me you know as a young reader and now seeing that you can find people who are very different from you to help you accomplish your goals and work together and i thought that was revolutionary at the time but i think there is to cover as a character also and he grows and changes in the book more than any and i think seeing that transformation is very interesting when she doesn't looking for rooster cogburn are looking for someone she says she's looking for a man with true grit what does that mean to you to me i think it has to do with persistence

and it has to do with not being distracted by all the other things they might encounter she knows and asking that she wants to go along and even though the people she's asking don't know that at the time so she knows she's gonna need somebody who will stick with her on her mission she's gonna be in charge of that she is the leader and so she needs someone who can i can work with that can work with being subordinate to a fourteen year old girl on this journey which you might not expect a character like risk your cupboard to be able to be subordinate to a fourteen year old girl in his initial enough he very much learns from her what she's capable of and when she proves herself arguably with her own true grit and then he starts or specter they're joined on their journey by a third character libby talked to me about him out of a piece of beef to me is like one good morning if you want to look out for in the world but at the same time he sort of grows and changes as well but lee beef to me is very

much you know we can all benefit from this and i will benefit the most and i have the best moustache and he's very much in it for himself and he's willing to align himself some white with other people who might advance his cause i think he's very much a counterpoint two hours to cover and to many and yet all three of them are looking out for number one they all are they all have something in the game they all go a little side trips to accomplish their uncles and it's what makes this adventure story what makes the plot very of fast pace and readable want to get into it i will admit the beginning and a little slow and that once that starts happening it happens fast cause everybody has things they're trying to accomplish and faith they just go through i tackling life's challenges helping each other out where it suits them was like your title here at that peak is ana county public libraries book evangelist say i'm someone he's not particularly interested in reading triggered it doesn't

seem like my genre it's just not grabbing my attention do your best book evangelism for true grit you when you read the book true grit because in the opening line mattie ross we'll hook you into the story and you'll need to see what happens you'll be drawn into mattie ross his voice and then you'll be drawn into the adventure you're gonna hear mattie ross after you finish the book godin you to finish your own projects and at the end of the book mattie ross has can inspire you to look at your own life and wonder how you're going to look back on it when you're older or were you not gonna like it and there's thousands of other books in the world that you were like that but it could go either way that he was mentally really want with the stale ebook evangelist at the peak assigning county public library thank so much for listening with me today to talk about ukraine as part of the typical libraries big read true grit on it sunday february fifteenth they will be hosting at cowboy poetry gathering this week i have driven up to manhattan to visit

with cowboy poet ron wilson run thank you so much for listening with me today to select one cowboy poetry what's the polls on how about will i like to say and just that cowboy poetry is the opposite of good poetry and that's what i mean by that is it is indeed poetry it is rhyming verse but it's not fans of fried literature it is poetry that celebrates a great american west but celebrates the american cowboy historically and contemporary it rhymes and it often tells a story they looked on the lighter side it makes me reflect on the challenges of over its life or cowboy and but it's a really about the american west the values of the american west and it's a lot of fun because predict how even writing poetry well i grew up here on the ranch and

so i was always around cowboy life but i didn't start riding cowboy poetry until probably the mid nineteen nineties actually i was at a meeting in colorado and they either had entertainment so one night and it was a cowboy poet this crazy character do war i hadn't climbed up on the chair and it's set up home and i thought it was a good i'd never seen such a crazy thing but then i started riding cowboy poetry of my own and so as i said is a lot of fun to do it's the survey and a humorous line or are more serious it's the really famous cowboy poets are people like baxter black who is absolutely high lyrics and so he looks for the lighter side he finds the humor in things and i think that's where a cowboy poetry is maybe most famous but there is a serious side and there's a there's a sober side to it

some of the earliest cowboy poems go back to you know that kind of a sad days of of losing it a partner along the trail and so when nowadays so when we do a cowboy poetry contest we actually run a contest in conjunction with something in the foothills and we do a a serious category and a humorous category cause there's a place for both types of the hughes do you draw upon in your poetry what comedians are common for probably poetry will the best cowboy poetry comes from real life and i think it's going to keep those are going on the rain sometimes is a you know you'll have a regular source accidental have a funny situation occurred and and you'll say well if nothing else i can get a poll and you know and so we do and so express ourselves in and it's a year is a way of kind of doing an off her chest but

but then people particularly you know rural audiences can relate to in our urban audiences can appreciate that can find that the humor in and see a little bit more about that lifestyle so it's a it's a great way to express it and then to engage your audience with this music play a role allen in cowboy poetry gathering is it does the cowboy music is a very very important component of the genre poetry itself is spoken word and when we're doing the gathering in topeka we're going to involve a song or two at least in the afternoon because it that's a great way of representing left her life as well i don't happen to do the music but we will have some people who will somewhat will be there

on sunday the fifteenth i'm really excited about that because i'm kind of him saying that that gathering in the afternoon but we'll have catherine gardner of topeka read hamilton from kuwait down well born from terry and jeff davidson for me read so there's some pretty accomplish cowboy poets all of them have been in law also with more winners at some level in our state cowboy poetry contest so each one is going to perform as well as i will end and then we'll have some discussion and kind of talk about how the cowboys been portrayed through the years because i think that is inching as well relate how that the legend the origin of the cowboy took place which really was on the plane to kansas i mean the true cowboy came to life on the kansas plains in the civil rights the subtle the post civil war era of the big cattle drives to kansas that's really

how the cowboy came to life but it's been such an enduring symbol through the years that it still their national symbol a cowboy as an international symbol of love bravery and strength and courage and independents and therein do and so we celebrate that still today can you read you get you share one of my favorite dish or once is one i call what's in a name and i always like to dedicate this song to my friends in texas who i like to remind that in the days of the cattle drives those cowboys only goal was to get to kansas if that's where they could find in the trial what's in a name the stranger road in the town or the big ten gallon hat and it was sort of a kitchen railroad where the sheriff's at the surf said howdy stranger welcome to our town what's a handle we should call you if you're going to be around we can call me tex stranger stop to say over by the sheriff who come

from texas way no replied the stranger and the louisiana man the sheriff certain puzzlement i just don't understand an nhs the question which obviously came next if you're from louisiana why the dough by tax the stranger said well it's very simple if you please the truth is i didn't want anybody cullen me louise i'm a i didn't see that one coming so that's what makes a cowboy poet prefer knew you'd take some sort of cowboy westerns setting and then try to find some humor and just in this id you wouldn't notice if you're just listening on the radio that you're reading the poem you were residing at by memory i run lots of homes and a small subset of them i have memorized when an awful lot of us have written lots of homes that we have to read and i read plenty but there is no substitute for finding i really good poem where the the ryman the meter fit

and a couple with it and you get that memorize and even share with an audience without a single note that's about another one i will do one that is on the serious side and that does go back to the cabdriver and it's based on the true story of incidents along the trail this is one that that i will share i think happy the big read in topeka when we made it that people shunning county public library on february fifteen i rejoined titled this poem stampede but i re titled that love and life lost let me tell you the story of a hot summer night we were trailer heard for charlie goodnight we can collide and engine territory will never forget the terrible story i sat by handling of the chuck wagon that

night a beef biscuits and means by the campfire like i asked billy why he'd chosen the cowboy life he said to make money to take him a wife he was going to save his earnings are no longer road and marry the girl that he left back home her name was mary as pretty as patty that part made him smile and prosperity was i took our minds off this card trail for a bit when suddenly the devil's own thunderstorm at a bolt of lightning tore through the skies the longhorns panic within their eyes they start or run as we went first deeds my heart was pounding it was a stampede i was pelted with rain as i spurred michael hughes we try to have them but it was no use let him go fight all of the old rail boss so i stood in my spirits and random house we all rode back to our regional camps open discourage with everything they had we would gather the cattle at the first light of dawn that something was wrong though it was gone when daylight came we found were infertile drive ahead of those they ran pell mell

young billy was dead you could see at a glance where his horse stumbled he hadn't a chance so take out a shovel and then emigrates as we gathered the cattle and broaden the strays and we bury them there on the windswept prairie where young billy will never get home to his memory ron wilson residing cowboy poetry he'll be at that he gets on a county public library on sunday february fifth team as part of their celebration of their big read true grit run heavy retrograde yourself in them you're right reaction to that but i have read true grit and true grit represents an interesting transition from the white hat good guy cowboy as he'd been portrayed by the roy rogers and the singing cowboys in previous years he was more of a moderate realistic and there become a warts and all cowboys john wayne is probably the greatest western movie actor the only oscar he ever received was for

true grit and you know he had a zillion movies but that was really his most notable but he yeah i was is hard drinking hard fighting hard testing old cowboy but he showed true grit when that when the chips are down increasingly the book is really written from the standpoint of mattie ross a young girl who is an older woman by the time she's telling the story you know in the end i think she shows true grit she's a woman who really has that the determination to fight through the deadly in a time when women really were not given that opportunity she took a stand she pursued that what she wanted done and she demonstrated a lot of of true grit in the end they make for an extremely entertaining book and movie and that's worth noting that beat because shawnee county public library selected their book for the big read on a vote of the public and the public voted for true grit i'm pleased to say so i think this will be a lot of fun and glad for the advance that

really that big at shawnee county public libraries putting on all month to celebrate the big read so it's a great opportunity for the community the region's renting you take us out with one last poem but i ate dip home for kansas day and lawyer into february so can stay as a week or two away but i could do the kansas medical implants i called it the spirit of kings as pioneers in kansas early pioneers came west to build the state that we reflect on all the years to pause and celebrate our native tribes were first we sought to bring us early fame the kansas indians known as car gave us our very name and cowboys drove while cattle north to meet the kansas rails and brave explorers ventured forth blaze the frontier trails brave men and women joined the quest in search of visions grain and their destiny made

manifest was found in kansas' lead and forks and farms and towns were built with home in school and church as bleeding kansas blood was built and freedoms but search a millionaire or was born with why are states aviation became an energy supply bread basket of the nation dwight eisenhower and bob dole picked up the call to serve our soldiers still fulfill that role our values to preserve the spirit of the pioneer still lives on in our days and caring for our neighbors here and research for new ways the men and women of every stripe who care about our state can come together and unite to shape our future fight so in this time of kansas day we think those pioneers and ask for strength to guide our way to our times new frontiers that's ron wilson cowboy poet leave leave the te ranks near

manhattan run thank you so much for listening with me today like so much jenny again that's probably poet ron wilson he and other cowboy poets will be at the library next sunday february fifteenth from two to four pm you can find a complete schedule of all big read events at the topeka shawnee county public libraries website t f c p l that or again that's t f c p l dot org ok macintyre well accepted to the library this week i spoke with day and a friend about some of the other events going on this month in connection with their big read one of the things that we always like four is and the educational end of it and we have a wonderful program with at a scholar from the university of pennsylvania that talks about having success in your children is determined by the amount of graft that they have that self control in great day then

the kids and i will be here later this month that they're in cooperation with washburn university talking about the photography that event going on here at the library right now well we have the wonderful pictures of fm steel and they came from the center of the great plains and that they are beautiful black and white framed prints that actually show the late nineteen century cowboys and their their guard their attack the horses in the grips of what it was like to be in kansas during that time and even their true grit is set in arkansas when they go chasing town chaney into the territories kansas was just experiencing their early days of statehood at that time and i think being able to walk into that gallery exhibit and see that you

understand that it isn't all john wayne and it isn't all green not only do we have the photograph stan there that we have tax down there are some people that can actually see what a bustle looks like or a court and that you used to move those little doggies along along with that exhibit is going and then that the sabatini gallery and you have jim hoyt coming in on thursday february nineteen to talk about what true grit might have looked like funny about that event if you had the opportunity year jim he is such a fabulous speaker and he will actually tell you that the challenges ahead and someone living during that time hands and he if you will he will paint that picture and tell that story through describing the images and the trials and the tribulations that people would go through at that time

and we are very lucky to have someone like jim hall a guy in our area that people can come in and actually have the facts and figures it isn't fiction is the his store oracle documentation of a time you've got some wonderful musical tie ins to your big reader of true grit talk to me about some of those whoa wait we kick the van ark at the first of the month with the top brass string band which i am very reminiscent of what you would be hearing and on the trail because people aren't they had moved from the east to the west they love their music yet they they brought it with them even though it was something that made it might've been they carry on horseback or in the back of the wagon so and that was a very entertaining performance that we had with that bet we also wanted to kind of bring it into something that people might be able to carry

with end so that as our finale this year that we're partnering with the topeka performing arts center and bringing done liam's that they can to music of fame recording artist ian anne we'd send him a copy of true grit so hopefully we'll read out by the time he gets here that he sings about life and love them must the typical country balance that i think are reminiscent of what we have there and we've also paired with that rusty walker i married co chair is a member and an award winning sharpshooter and then as she and her gang will be coming to do a little pre show before and the w's concert i am all dressed in period costumes and they will have a display of some of the weapons that might have been used during that time she did that as a paid ambassador of that for us

and then i she is very knowledgeable and she her husband both have won national championships for the sharpshooters if people want to find out more about all the activities or how they can get involved have a baby that we have a really easy just think big read that t s e e p l for topeka shawnee county public library dot org and the weavil you can go right to that page and it will tell you all about the bird and the program schedule and right now are three hundred copies of the book are checked out then we also have books on the topeka metro buses so you can get a copy there on the bus on the bus we have partnered with topeka metro for the last two big reed said and that's how we found with the great gatsby and that every bass has that i think ten copies of the book there you pick it up you

read it get back on the best to leave it there for someone else to read so truly truly i am fine example that it mattered as of getting everyone engaged in reading the same book what a great idea is dana thank you so much for listening with me today it's my pleasure and j mcintyre you're listening to hey pee our prisons on kansas public radio if you're just joining us today as kbr present is all about true grit this year's big reed selection at the topeka as shawnee county public library the library is hosting a film series in connection with their big breed of true grit i invited john tibbets of the university of kansas film department to come in and talk about the film series which kicked off last friday with the two thousand ten version of true grit starring jeff bridges as rooster cogburn the film series continues this friday february thirteenth with another western classic the searchers starring john wayne we'll hear what john tibbets has to say about the searchers

right after this as a service it's beyond the objections because be there's only one way you can stop me from work and producing state and its chilly us away i fail ugly ethan sir mr allen given the orders here i'm given the orders on your farm or worse but not right here i'm not sure he says one reason we're in it mr fine deadly and you say it's a search field to qwest film so many westerns are convincing we have a major problem in

texas in that a farm has been overrun by the indians and ethan john wayne and a nephew of his at least use of officially called a nephew set out in search of the abducted young as two sisters there's about a five year search going on to try and find the indians and recapture the young ladies said have been there abducted one of them they find her body she's been killed and raped and she's gone and it's a horrible thing and that elicit some of john wayne's greatest moments i mean this man is mean he is angry is racist sergeant host i mean he's a package and this is revealed to us as we go especially when we find the body of the first girl and i assume most everybody knows or has seen mr helms i guess i can go ahead and say let's not real oilers still the film is showing at that the clever and just as in i give the ending let's just say that they find her and there's some very important things that happened at that

but it's john wayne in this film it's in may using performance and here is the movie should've got the oscar for actually there are several films i would've given him an oscar four but this certainly is one but the problems if i might go on a little bit about this film because it's a real love hate the thing for me is that john ford shot the thing in monument valley know what in the world are farmers doing with a flaw in monument valley where there's no crops anywhere interview has never been explained to me although whitson hawks photography unbelievable it's gorgeous not a sci fi tactical or steer footage we've ever had shot by anybody anywhere about anything but then long scenes go on where you're inside a studio set whether it's a farmhouse or an indian teepee and suddenly you're on a sound stage and it reeks of sound stage and all of that

fresh air of exteriors just leached out of the scene and you're in a clunky sound stage and the disparity but when those scenes has always really jarred me and i think some people bless their hearts don't notice it and that's great cause it does not in the way of the film but that sort of thing really does for me and there's problems at the ending but we do it but i might i might sit for you western brands take note john wayne's posture as ethan i mean how he stands and he seems he'll stand slightly odd off on one hip but the bees right arm clasping the forearm of his left arm that is a kind of tribute to one of the great western heroes of the scream and a man by the name of harry carry harry kari got his start doing john ford films back in the teens harry carey was a huge western star and that was a

characteristic sort of signature gesture of his so when wayne does that in the film it the tribute to his departed friend at harry carey's son harry carey jr also is the picture so there's all kinds of things are resonating going on in the film but i think that's one of the most affecting ones because a last night he does don't remember harry carey but i might jog your membranes saying you you can see him in mr smith goes to washington he's chairing the congressional assembly during the filibuster wonderful wonderful man most of the westerns alas are lost but in the searchers we see that signature there for all to see the following week february twentieth they're selling a very different kind of western the nineteen eighty two film unforgiven woodland is when i was privileged to interview him and the other cast members on unforgiven for great experiences of my life on you go back to

the subject back to nineteen seventy three and eastwood was asked to replace drought heston for the oscar ceremonies and eastward at the time said i can't believe asked me to stand up here because i never talk in my movies well he doesn't talk all that much in unforgiven but he certainly did talk quite a lot after the film doing interviews on it what was really fun well it made and getting things out of order but what was really funny is during the interview with him i'm alone with him in this room at the four seasons and in walks richard harris and gene hackman it i'm pinching myself i was writing along with eastwood hackman and richard harris there so they were gonna be acting up a bat piercings and subtly harrison or upset he says john you want to know what life was like when i used to accept this is now shut up and listen

exactly exactly he says you know you're anything it's silence you know what he's doing is working with a crew he's worked with before many times they're all prepared and that's what life is like a step and i thought that was just a very cool cool the end of things it came up about the movie are so interesting watch the photography there's a beautiful coal oil light which is what eastwood calls it and that gives the film the road gritty kind of texture indoors and out talk a little bit about the plot of unforgiven it's really dark story yeah well it's a really violent crime well actually it as i recall it begins and ends with a shot of him in silhouette in the distance walking across a hill and there is a graveyard the tombstones there he has lost his wife he's having a

hardscrabble existence he's getting older his gun fighting days are over his name is will money and it seems as if they could hardly get up on a horse anymore much less shoot straight but when a bounty is offered to capture an outlaw he takes up enough to accept the invitation and he gets together with a former partner of his morgan freeman one of the great secondary roles in this film with morgan freeman and the two of them sally forth and they run into a little bill back get that's gene hackman who's a sheriff nutty he's a cold blooded killer but he's wearing a badge ok we have some violent showdowns in the film and rich eastwood treats violence not in a choreographed certain graceful dallek take sam peck and polish kind of style that is brutal and blunt and on discriminating were the bullets are going unused wood talked again about the fact that that's kind of the sense he wanted to get they had become what they used to be

killing machines and i wrote an interview article on this in which i called it the machinery of violent something clicks in the gears are set the engines around in and now conditioned reflexes are once again and play and that's part of the problem violence has become a kind of are conditioned reflex in those environments eddie's woodward show to such not to glamorize it but perhaps to bemoan the dehumanization that has taken over those characters and just as a side note if you're going to this film series of that because of the library unforgiven is the only one of the four movies with an r rating so again unforgiven is shown on february twentieth the searchers february thirteenth last friday we have the two thousand ten remake of true grit and the final film fedor a twenty eight is the nineteen sixty nine version of true grit kim darby

was a little messy fourteen years old who is on a quest to avenge the death of her father and so she lists rooster cogburn who unlike the model wears a patch over war ii ran the novel is one i made but i guess they thought would be more graphics so now to have the patch and he growls and grumbles his way the corps should always eventually get approved to be a staunch defender of young mattie and her quest and so it works out we got that very very famous charge at the end really i think has a rifle in one hand and a revolver and the other and he's charging on the horse i guess for people and he wins the day and he won an oscar it's wayne so only oscar and then of course there was a sickle i think around seventy five with katharine hepburn and very different than a compelling and maddy yeah like an african queen she's a kind of starchy spinster rich person and

as is the case with african queen she and her unlikely soulmate get together we know it's going to happen at the beginning of all these films but they're young kim darby is fine as maddie but you know glen campbell as a ranger i'm not so sure that it ever worked he's supposed to be a sharp shooting categorize but instead i kept hearing him singing the theme song from the movie which may have been the main reasons why he was there that's john tibbets of the university of kansas film department we've got an excerpt from that nineteen sixty nine true grit with sharp shooting glen campbell as la beef here's the scene where he meets mattie ross and tries to join forces in their search for the man she knows as tom chaney his real name is there on your state senator named lived in waco texas i've been on his trail the sport for months now is some kind of life and i started in texas rangers work in the

family of the late senator biggs tillis for cheney as you call him a shout to listeners bergdahl served with him in j sheffield oh most of them of course when it actually and had high serve only that you were looking for a man to go after chain in the indian territory for the job his name is just a carpet he's a deputy marshal for the federal court half swan half maybe also interviewed your federal marshal was their mutual advantage he knows a land mammal cheney to lease a two man job to take him alive and i must have him alive down the mclennan county texas cheney were not taking him back to texas again of what is important where it hangs it is to me that's the nineteen sixty nine film version of true grit that to be clear sunny county public library will show true grit along with the searchers and i'm forgiven as part of their true grit film series sewing the next three friday evenings in marvin auditorium at the

library find out more at the library's website t f c p l dot org two of the library's staffers behind this year's big reed of true grit are tiny walls and valerie brief i had a chance to visit with them this week about the character of fourteen year old mattie raw ah she is all a character with that that single mindedness that vision where this is what i have to get done nothing is going to stop me not this bounty hunter from texas who wants to co opt my vision my my plot lobby for us because he has his own agenda and she doesn't want him there he's is a bounty hunter and he's got a big paycheck way for it and he tries to cajole brewster into going over to his side because his payoff is better than what math is offering to pay and matisse no i hired a rooster i paid my money as he made the economic bottom line i paid

my money you said you would help me first you will do this for me what was some other things that you really enjoyed delving into in true grit i don't know this is a team or not but i love what porters does with character you know at the very simplest who has true grit and who does it all the characters have great including ned pepper they're all greedy people but then there's great vs true grit and it's not black or white because you say well rooster cogburn he has true grit well why he's a criminal he has committed lots of crimes so why does he have true grit maddy has true grit but again she's not the most perfect character you could say she's a very flawed character so what makes true grit it's not a flawless character it's not the quote white hat versus the black hat

so what is that quality one of the things that i found the most surprising when i read true grit was i was the same that this was a book that was written in the league lee eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds i was shocked to find out it was written in nineteen sixty eight who do we started talking about just that question immediately after having finished reading the book and watching the video the movies and it is definitely a historical novel it's set in the distant past at least is that a nod in the past that it qualifies as an historical novel anna takes on things that are echoed in the time of the writing of the book i just would be pediatric nineteen sixty am i and here are some of the major events of nineteen sixty eight the tet offensive on that famous famous photo of the two vietnamese officers one shoot them

in the head that when the surprise that imaginary sixty eight on the black power movement martin luther king jr was assassinated and the black panthers galvanized lbj signed the civil rights act of sixty eight inch along the play hair debuted on broadway bobby kennedy was assassinated so i looked all that went well how did true great sidney gets way into this why this book at this time because i thought it was very odd i think two things are going on on first i think a lot of more traditionally minded americans were looking for a simple narrative a simple story to tell because at that time this time in sixty eight there are no easy stories it's a complex year on and it's on the surface of a very simple story we have this teenage girl who has one

thing she wants to avenge her father's death and she hires this year quote mythical figure out of the american way asked to help her achieve her and it's a cowboy story good guys versus bad guys on the surface you could make a case for that and then i started thinking all courses got to be smarter than that even he did tell good stories lead me richer than a plot level double what else is going on and this may be far fetched bonds kept their word out there look at rooster cogburn he is a war veteran displaced from one of our country's bloodiest most hotly debated wars are civil war and you could say i think in nineteen sixty eight that vietnam turned our country into a civil contest with all the student protests the draft card burnings versus the establishment that word because when is the right word but when with dixon's

election in november of that year so we had it country full term while our we had vietnam veterans coming back being displaced be unappreciated by the citizens of this nation i think rooster cogburn is kind of like that and again on even though he's painted in the end as a positive character because he saves matisse life he has a very checkered past but he's also displaced he's he's a figure of the old west or a figure of the south who doesn't have a place in what is becoming the turn of the century into the modern era and so he becomes this kind of wild west figure that we no longer have at this time in history the west is really the only place a man can go to continually remade himself in sixty eight there's really nowhere to go to remake yourself tiny

a waltz and mallory reef of that peak at shawnee county public library the library is getting younger readers involved in all the fine if you're not quite old enough for true grit marlena hodgkinson says you can read a fake mustache for it a big reader little brother it's a great book it's really funny and very very fast moving it's got a great place i like to say that it's good to give readers a chance to prove that they've got a little bit of grit on their own if they can wrangle the subtitle is called fake mustache i met this wonderful subtitle is or how judy a rodeo and i wonder horse and some nerdy kid save the us presidential election from the mad genius criminal mastermind i think it's a curious nothing will be outrageously silly series on how we anticipate events that i'm like the heroes in the book prove that they've

got some true grit and that nerdy little kid that you mention in the subtitle is a protagonist of that but that's better and lenny finds in your tummy but the two main characters reid fleming jr is best friends with casper being who actually turns out to be the antagonist police more or less time and he's kind of a nerdy kid he doesn't have a lot of friends of his sound and he meets up with it only a rodeo yes i think he can has a little crush on jody a rodeo he watches her tv show she's a teenage real queen but he blames that on his younger sisters that he's there watching it anyway every week how did you pick this book for a big re full brother this year we decided to open it up to the children and what the kids felt so i am a big display about six months ago and after or alternatives and

all that's received a lot of representation but fake mustache won by a landslide you have a lot of really neat activities designed for the kids can really tell you about our mad genius criminal mastermind convention arena let the kids develop their mad criminal skills and reagan encouraged them to do a little creative thinking and creative writing at the same time so when they get there were gonna let them pick an evil aliens and dream up a diabolical scheme to take over the world and then as a final event oregon have the mad criminal skills grudge match and they're going to do things like hypnotized their teammates was going to get a bargain opponent on the head with a pillow and they're going to make it through a laser mays although there are no actually users involved so the little dangerous i think it could be dangerous dangerous for find out more about the big read of true grit and the degree that little brother fake mustache at the topeka shawnee county

public libraries website t s e e p l dot org for the rest of this hour we'll visit another library the kansas city kansas public libraries already have a number of book clubs and book discussion groups but this week they announced that they are launching a new online book club car manhattan patton and kim woolery of the case the k public library save their new online book club young bloods focuses on why a young adult fiction but for adult readers a thing is that young adult books they're really popular i read a study from two thousand twelve that said that over fifty percent of y a bookseller purchased our bridges by adults for adults and i personally personally and thirty am i love away boats that they're my favorite books to read even now i order all the pulp fiction and i work in the adult section of the library so i thought this would be a great way to reach out to people like me who love way books and what kind of space

that they can talk about them you know that's a really interesting point because i read a lot of why a i'm in my fifties and the reason i read a lot of why it is that i have three kids who are all in their late teens or twenties who are huge why a van so when they got to the age where they were starting to read why a book's it was really fun for me to be able to read the books that they were reading and not that i didn't enjoy the books they read when they were kids that way but have a lot of meat to them and calm and it's kind of fun to to say somebody's reading now woody what are you enjoyed reading and to build a tap into that honor which i do who might've otherwise overlooked fact i think also there's a lot of stigma towards adults they rely a box and i personally think that's ridiculous i think anyone should be able to eat anything and if i can help create a space where people feel like it's acceptable for them to read what they want to read then i'm all about that why an online book club what is that because you hope that people will get out of

being online that they might not have gotten out of one of your other existing book clubs and the idea of an online book club first our day back in november when we launch a new service it's an e card it's part of our efforts to reach the community where they are at a lot of the tv ads online so we have this e card in it a community where people can go online and in less than sixty seconds they can sign up for a library card or they can access all our digital content so we have like e that idea but streaming movies music that kind of thing and at that time ally very racy duet they can check everything out and sadly there are no holds no waits and we treated the community as our digital branch where they can access everything we knew that we wanted our digital users to have the same michael leiter experiences that traditional users in part that its programming so that's you know an online book club would be the perfect way to do this is we have the audio berkes and events or they can download

and listen read at their own pace and they can just hop on the website discuss light on their lunch break or at home at night just whenever they have the time and i go about picking the books for your online book club well i think they're even voice because i've read it before and i love it i read it several times but what i most of it was i literally had available online through who blow to their ideals look service and then the magic wall to evoke service to see what we had and what looked interesting the main mr eilert the thirties and good reads to find things that had good reviews that i thought people what i can't speak to people let's talk about your first choice for your online book club as you mentioned its called the raven boys it's by an author maggie stiefvater what can you tell me about the author and this book in particular i know tonight is the father has written several other books she wrote this series of sugar which is about where wolves an adjuster the scorpio races and i believe that she's currently working on the

fourth book in the raven boys that trial entire series is called the raven cycle she actually announced that forced at today's committee called the raven kenyan it's coming out in september so what else can you tell me about the raven boys well they're as he sat there and before birth and the dispersant or there reading it's about time running police sergeant you gaze who lives in a house full of psychics and she's the only one who isn't psychic and she goes with her mother every year it's you they watched the souls of the people who are going to die within the next year and then that she had never seen him for not having psychic powers but this year she sees the boy and she finds out his name as can see if she finds out that by seeing him at me and she said there he is at a virtual level or she's going to kill him and there are various circumstances she comes across aegean sea and his group of friends rather this private school in town called adam b and she finds out that they're on this quest to find this mystical

welsh kenya's sleeping anyway can agree on wage and see it publicly all this blues osman told her entire life that if sheikh issa search let's hold i says she has to decide you know how involved she wants to be with his boys how much she wants to join them on their quests whether hostility and she notices teacher and a whole questions basically if you knew someone speech or would you tell them that's a great question but a great choice for your first online book club the raven boys by maggie stiefvater where can you find out more about kansas city kansas public library programs and specifically this online book club and the best place to get would be our website and that's casey at elle dot org and if you want said join the book club mix a hat and immediately right on the front of the web page says joiner on my brooklyn if they click on that will be able to go right to the page with the discussions an adult video to

watch and acquisitive out which character you are and that means a second but congratulations on this new endeavor and best of luck to both of you that's kim war ii and carmen hannon patton of the kansas city kansas public library you can find out more about young bloods their new online young adult fiction book club for adult readers at their website k c k p l dot org that's k c k p l dot org and once again find out more about the big read of true grit at the topeka sunny county public library at their website t s e e p l dot org that's t s e e p l that morgue there you can find a reader's guide to true grit and audio guide to the book and a complete list of events i'm kay mac entire kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas

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