Kansas Notable Books, Part I

looking for a good book i'm kate mcintyre and today on kbr presents the two thousand eleven kansas notable books each year the center for the book at the state library of kansas releases a list of the best new books written by kansans or about kansas this year's list covers a wide range of topics including the topeka tornado of nineteen sixty six and almost forgotten kansas poet and after school project about the holocaust and much more we'll start today's program with a writer whose voice may be a familiar one sure andrew is from emporia her essays can be heard regularly on kansas public radio's morning edition her latest book is fly over people this reading was recorded at the lowlands public library i was reading a book by natalie goldberg and she was talking about she had a workshop in their asylum from kansas he showed up and that and one from kansas has lived her whole life in the state and now lee goldberg right apps that grasp that concept of a person

saving one place all their life especially cancers apparently so she was telling people to find out what kansas knows so this is from february of two thousand and five oh my god what kansas knows like many of you i'm a kansas life for a child of the prairie kansas is a land where i was born where i struggled for balance after that he moved the training wheels for my bicycle here my brother and cousins and i drag the mattress out to grandma's farm house to fall asleep counting stars as kansans you and i can sense a lot of her eyes and even in the dark we put our faith in the change of seasons year after year these lenders roll over to spring and standing of the nervous warmth of march we scanned the flint hills for signs of new life each april as tentative brush as a lavender wash of the fields and ditches or odd but the soft watercolor landscape in june we want to combine string like steam mr bolden say and irene obviously logically of

grasshoppers with each step through dry grass you and i would be different people and we spend our lives gazing at wisconsin or wyoming skies we would have memorized another state motto and warm winter coats and a different landscape in her book thunder lightning natalie gober writes about a kansas woman who attended one of her writing workshops goldberg writes ids are several times saying to the group i know a kansas knows intruder was a guy who wanted to know what she knew living her life in one place so what does kansas know what does a person leave a living his or her entire life in the state i don't have legal theory that we swayed with a chorus of cicadas counted seventy four shades of blue sky and that we know every shadow of the land over the years we've watched barnes for surrender their pains then they lose their straight lines outbuildings lean sometimes for a decade before new into the ground

many of us have dropped fingers over the red whiskers of wheat and this key as we climbed aboard grandpa's pigeon to attract black and our hands on the steering wheel kansans are familiar with the race between a pickup in squalid us to chase it the truck arrives at the stop sign first that the das alles victoriously to the intersection we swallowed that task and it's going to start comes from the corners of our eyes so when the day is that we wash your hair the water turns brown kansans are acquainted with the seizures the stand watch the cemeteries and the chain link fence is the draw the graveyards boundaries the names carved on the granite stones are our family names we've very grandparents here this is our ancestral home we conduct ourselves to the prairie like rice on slaying it can draw here and there are we dig into the soil would take nourishment from the land and sunday we leave the planes will take notice a scrapbook of images that the seasons have burned into our

subconscious mind askins is no secret this is one for march of two thousand and three and it explains the flyover people think it's called kansas goes all the way up occasionally i need a strong city with trees chase county women to discuss writing in such things so one winter's evening i emerged from hibernation and west down on us highway fifty five in some of the open road the early to bed son had just dropped below the southwestern edge of are now showing on the wide screen drive in theater was a rose colored sunset a stream of pastel klaus line the horizon as i stared into the evolving color glimpse of light became apparent jets eight of them leonard and sunset like ufos silver

platter speak and spell pink sky caught in the vision of the disappearing son in each sport was aimed at random headed for who knows where even when just don't appear to be ufos and captivated by the planes in the thin crisp vapor trails of chasing miles of nervous people traveled toward adventure leading the path a break from standing there behind them in case and aerodynamic sheets of metal hundred or more people ski across the sky each person with her own story each one focused on his destination as a plane straws to have a white line i wonder which passenger flights were a beach in the caribbean which one anticipates the levers are union in miami in which travel or just want to be able to find a car in an airport parking lot i imagine those in a plane's glowing in the western sky to be full of restless magazine reader's sipping seven up glancing out the windows down to the flint hills wondered what didn't see paring down to the prairie to dusk

does a cluster of street lights run strong cities show up at thirty thousand feet father isaac it's the headlights on the long stretch of highway i call the skull and flyover people because of my fascination with the sky sun sets but clouds as well some planes and travelers that inhabit the air the phrase laurie people is intended as a disparaging term a jet setters from the east and west coasts feel a little superior to those of us living in the slower paced world midwest they get impatient are crossing are wide expanse of farmland in great plains ian frazier writes america's like a wave of higher and higher frequency already jammed and lowest frequency in middle east that is okay giving the i in the center of the storm firstly i don't mind being considered inconsequential to votes john suthers i'd like being flown over it makes me feel connected with the animated sky and around here the sky's

not just about the two fronts behind and the scientists in the nineteen seventies were nowhere are somewhat hyperactive kansas attorney general wanted to enforce kansas's liquor laws in the airplanes flying over the site isn't your proclaimed kansas goes all the way up in kansas goes all the way down our in the sky just want to us it is ever present player in our daily lives for a few days immediately following september eleventh two thousand won air traffic was grounded without can trail streaking the sky this was a lonely place or costa companions the disappeared the gypsies in the sky were gone the business travelers the vacationers the flight attendants and beverage cars airplanes are among its more attention since we first heard those words and a field in pennsylvania now we spy a shiny piece of metal in the air and the doubling threat because parent like to follow that plane to

its vanishing point until it disappears into thin air it's spread to the atmosphere leaving military footprints on the sky and saw the pressurized cabin passenger headed for who knows where leaves are brown against the cool window to catch a glimpse of life on the ground in a rectangular state and we're down here looking up sheryl underwood is a writer from emporia her latest book is fly over people which is also the name of her weekly column that appears and the emporia does that we'll stay in emporia for the next book on the kansas notable book lust it's a book about in emporia girl who never grew up mary white was the daughter of fame did newspaper editor william allen white her life ended tragically in a horseback riding accident when she was only sixteen beverly olson bowler of newton wrote a biography of mary white it's called a prairie peter pan welcome beverly very glad to be here thank you for having the now this is your second appearance on the

canvas notable books list your first was in two thousand eight for your children's biography from emporia the story of william allen white house a little bit about that book and how you became interested in the story of mary white yes from emporia was written because the book was needed it was needed for kansas children it was needed for kansas schools but i discovered and i'm finding it again with my second book there are a lot of adults that enjoyed a book and i've had people at book signings or after i'd done programs that come up and say thank you so much for writing this book i always wanted to know more about william allen white but i didn't want to read the big fake autobiography which is one of the few biographical books about him now that still in print and so i wrote this a lot of what i saw as a great need and i wrote it i decided to write it on the data that

william allen white home in emporia opened for the public i was there the governor spoke but before she spoke we all had had to pass through the visitor center to purchase our tickets and they look around there was nothing for children that day in that visitor center there's an elementary school right across the street i as a young teacher i would take children on field trips this will be the still think the site is a great place for field trips and i thought but for years i had thought someone should write a book about willie mount why i even went to library school in emporia and i didn't write about them because i thought someone that lived in emporia that had direct ties would write the book that i guess i was destined to write it and so that day i thought i have to write this book and i remember listening to governor sebelius in the front yard of their house thinking going to finally write my work and i was about fifteen years old so there's hope for anyone that wants to write you simply have to have a subject that you have enthusiasm for and there needs to be a need for a

knight known for years that there was interest in mary white and i'm not talking about just in kansas i have talked to people all around the united states and with this first book when they when i'd say well you know my oh he had bad daughter that died there's interesting mary for a good number of years and when i was getting my undergraduate degree they filmed a movie here in kansas it was a tv movie still there was a very good movie that was based on the editorial that he wrote following the death of his daughter i have one chapter about mary in my first book and i had mentioned to the publisher that i felt like there was a great interest in the second book in a book just about her four younger audience he wasn't sure and after this first book was i believe quite successful for our state for regional but then i proposed writing but then there are the merry white vote as we call it for a long time and kansas city star blank

said that a kid so here is the result of course both of my books are full of archival photos and all kinds of artifacts which is of great interest if you have an interest in these people you know that's one of the things i loved about reading a prairie peter pan was it's like looking at someone else's scrapbook you have report cards and photograph send telegrams and yet beautifully photographed and it's it's really a rich picture of mary white's life yes this is what i wanted for both my books are children nowadays are very very visual and with the advent of the scanner children's non fiction began to change their children's fiction has even changed their children's non fiction really began to change a nonfiction book a biography for children won the newbery medal back in the nineteen eighties it was by russell friedman the subject was lank kan and he was

able to use the very early form of the scanner to clear an actual articles of lincoln's that they were all well i'm actually think of the subject is of course they were black employees that you know nowadays i can have everything the way it really would be everything's in and bright color and its wonderful this this prairie peter pan that was only forty eight pages and every single page has something visual on it so it does not take long to read but i hope when people of any age read it they feel they have spent a little bit of time with mary be with her family and with their home state so for people who aren't familiar with mary white's story tall some biographical information what was she like as that as a child mary was born the same year as doctor says that dr seuss was born in massachusetts she was born here in kansas nineteen oh four she's very sickly baby

they did not think she would live but i think this is not unusual some children who are who are baby as babies and survive to grow up to be very fearless mary was very physical and early on it was horses and horse is occupied her the rest of her life quite literally because it was an accident with a horse that caused her death at age sixty i love your book there's a line that she could write anything with four legs and hair and that's not my line that's her father's day and yes and the title of the book a prairie peter pan comes from the words of william allen white tell us what that what the phrases meant to capture but one thing it could not find in my research was whether mary liked being referred to as peter pan there is no proof while she was living that her father actually called her that he certainly called her that following her death and i think it's a very apt description of her and in the beginning

of my work the first couple of lines peter leonard adventure almost as much as eleven mischief he made lots of prayers had lots of and he could fly and those things all describe mary she had many friends i don't think she ever knew a stranger she genuinely loved people like her father and found people to be a great interest she had a lot of fun even if she was in a high school chemistry class if you look at her textbooks she had won here on the teacher and the other on the friends sitting across from her or behind her and she doodle all the time and of course she loved life whether it was in a car or on a horse so peter of course she never got that old and as i say in the end of the book she remains alive in the words of her father the way peter pan had he been a real character remains alive in the words of j m barrie a prairie peter pan is by beverly olson bowler of newton beverly thanks for coming in today he's so much for having me i really enjoyed visiting at our next offer is also from

newton lana word myers wrote the book prairie rhythms the life and poetry of may williams ward women who was in may williams award she was born at night at two and she lived for ninety three years and her life touched people and events the rest of us just read about in history books she grew up in osawatomie kansas where radical abolitionist john brown was considered a hero and she attended the university of kansas at the turn of the twentieth century alongside people who now have buildings named for them see it in her diaries has an entry on about a conversation she had with temperance crusader carrie nation in nineteen oh one she had encounters with scopes trial lawyer and politician william jennings bryan and president teddy roosevelt and she was also a resident at the macdowell colony of the

arts in peterborough new hampshire along with pulitzer prize winning authors and internationally famous musicians and artists so i would say prairie rhythms is sort of tapestry of her her life history poetry and art when i picked a prayer rhythms and started reading through it i i can decide if i thought this was a biography with a lot of poetry in it or a poetry book with a lot of biographical information in it which were you trying to strive for you know i was trying to let her tell her own story which is the reason i use an abundance of quotes direct quotes from her correspondence in her diaries because i felt that that her colorful descriptions were fascinating windows not only and history that into her personality and into her arm her sense of humor and i also

wanted people to appreciate her poetry because i think that people even people who don't believe they like poetry will appreciate her poems my husband is one of them and i think juxtaposed with her life you can understand her poems so much easier i've had many people tell me that that when you know the history any experiences in her life you can understand her poetry can you give us an example maybe read a poem from the book and tell us how that fits into our life well my favorite poem sky now but she wrote when she was a resident at the macdowell colony in the summer of nineteen twenty five she and her husband had a wonderful marriage i it wears spout love affair that lasted over sixty years and they were separated during that month and

he wrote her every day and she wrote over twenty poems while she was there and one of the points the sky now and i believe that it shows that her heart was back in kansas when she wrote that poem and you hear here is sky mountain prairie land is called an airy light the sky our only mountain we inside who we choose a small land where hills steadily asserting granted will narrow our horizons stand apart are my golden prairie in the sky know it's hard and i get an idea of just how prominent a writer she was on a national scale at the time she was at the macdowell colony she was one of only thirty people on an international basis to be invited during the summer of nineteen twenty five

she was tear along with edwin arlington robinson who by that time had already been awarded the pulitzer prize twice sarah teasdale steven vincent van damme and also dubose and dorothy heyward who were collaborating on the script to porgy and bess during their stay the colony she wrote home for her family during this time period notables tours because blackberry's and harriet monroe wanted to publish the very famous poetry magazine poetry and maxine a verse about chicago was very fond of may williams words poetry publisher poems very often and they were great friends when i did the fact that she was so prominent in her time why think her legacy has been up until now we're

actually forgotten i wonder about that i think that there are many people who don't appreciate poetry because if they are very familiar with poetry and they feel somehow that it's something that they don't understand i'm not really sure i had never heard of her and tell by processed her manuscript collection at which testy university back in nineteen seventy eight when i was grabbed assistant there and i fell in love with not only her but her poetry and that's the mission of pre prairie rhythms is to reintroduce her because i think a lot of people will appreciate beautiful poems about cancer's let you pick up another poem from the book and share with us one is very appropriate for our area right now is the dust bowl this land the poetry society of america's

number one award in nineteen thirty seven it's something that mainly and sward wrote through personal experience center has been known a grain elevator business and it actually is a series of three small homes put together in a sequence just again all our values are shaken when earthen air reversed their functions when earth flies upward and beer prices is downward when earth is taken and swirled in the skies earth that should be massive and heart beneath her feet and twenty air symbol of politeness is choke and curse and happiness pushing to spare and are the cell and into the hard pressed long bright air flowing down in the dust we could not bear it except we must for all our values are shaken

what its birth is there anything solid ensure and what is here is their son anywhere the springsteen snow spring when the pollock justice over all the winter should get the green of the land when hand opens and gathers snapping after no harvest and fall after such a spring if the rain comes however late and fruitful out of season illogical hope springs again now too late too long after spring the mind cannot cope with the strangeness of this and timely swing airport that even with hopeless hope the heart can cope itself is a strange thing we had no we should not really start their accounts in the grass had died but we moved like sleepwalkers half a life our hearts were dry inside today when it rained we ran a tourist gets dirty

and crowded the dust ball was published in the new york times in nineteen thirty seven it appears in a prairie recounts the life and poetry of may williams ward by lana word myers of newton lennox thanks for sharing may williams ward with us today thank you for this opportunity my interviews with lana word myers and beverly olson bowler were recorded at the newton public library as was my next one clear vanderpool the debut novel is moon over manifest not only was it named a kansas notable but it also was awarded the prestigious newbery medal by the american library association welcome clare radio congratulations thank you oh my are manifest is actually two parallel stories one seven nineteen eighteen one set in nineteen thirty six tell us a little bit about nineteen eighteen and that the characters

of the town manifest well actually if it's ok i'll restore the nineteen thirties there were not common stock since your show five the getty art that is really there the if you caught the front story the present day portion abilene as the main character employing tucker she's a young girl bearing impression she's lived on the road with her dad drifting from job to job she's never really experienced home or community the catalyst for the book for me came from a quote that i had come across from moby dick which says it is not down in any map to places ever are and for someone like me who has lived in which time my home life lived in the same neighborhood most my life and college and that's something i treasure and value and choose to live you know in that same area with my family my neighbors on the hottest authors of place in a community so it was an interesting exploration going through this with apple inc exploring why home in places

so that's really the nineteen thirty six time period she meets the seine who runs it quote unquote divine parlor really she just this woman just tell stories from the past that brings about the nineteen eighteen time period which is when i am rambling his father had spent some time in this town as a boy and there's it manifests is really based on the true town of frack kansas which my eight am mother's parents are from that area and that time period i end it was rex with all kinds of color and history everything from bootlegging to the mines to be many many many immigrants still lived there i have a pie graph from a low but that i found from nineteen seventeen that shows that people from twenty two different countries living in this tiny little town so there was just so much history at uc and like i say the color flavor of that community so it was really fine weaving those two stories together abilene finds

herself kind of dumped in the town of manifested by her dad and it's really kind of find her way there and she stumbles across a box of mementos they kind of leave her on a journey of the town's history can you talk about some of those mementos in her box and where you got those ideas or where they lead her yeah i am you know like i say my grandparents are from that area and that time period they lived in which is how my mother was born here wichita so you know i never really visited them there by visiting them here you know there are just certain memories are nostalgic images that come to mind regarding colleges where a lot of this comes from when i was considering it's a cigar box on my grandmother smoked cigars and i made a pipe also but

you know i thought ok she's gonna find something that would be something that a person would hide little treasures on and that the the things that are in the box our relief between two boys and who is little older eighteen he goes off toward her world war one and a character named jake seasonal younger sizes thinking what would be something that this young soldiers to be would treasure in diet and when to leave in the care of this younger friend and down you know i think like most writers you tend to just look around your own life your own space and so the things i pulled from our wine is at liberty head silver dollar and i have a little collection of those that had belonged to my grandfather to them in a non xena jar for years and years that bp still have that kind of eucalyptus see outside just i started it can happen both ways sometimes i would pull just an actual item like that

and then you can see how the story would evolve around it and then in some other cases the story would take me to a certain point and then that would bring about the momentum but you know i can say this is a town of immigrants so there are a polish and russian people and a little thing called a much we ask the dollar funds a prickly little nesting dolls are very common i work so are really in poland russian eastern europe it now would always satisfy what would blow a baby interested in so fishing the way looking fishing lure a court this is a huge bootlegging community in there to this day very proud of that history and so a core was something that seemed a logical element of the story and theres a map seizures of a missing something oh the skeleton key and that was something that was in our house the only live in was built in nineteen twenty eight and from the day we lived in there was a low skill to keep the porch door and you know how great at bain as a skeleton key on your you know hiding something skeletons in the closet so

that mean it's kind of the gospel manifest as a fairly unusual naval account and cars and that's a part of this story as well as her grappling with the definition of manifesting remind us about the definition of manifest in a way it comes to meet him manifest actually i mean i'm very proud of that name i love been a manifest and i love the story about how it evolved bigot and i think this really for a writer is is a little capsule the writing life i sat on my desk for many hours this kind of gazing off and is based in yemen and scientists are nominated this town and you know i had to give it a different name then dr mack fictionalized this town but i knew to tell was a significant part of the story so i needed add a good solid weedy name and i i came up with jericho because this town somewhat built a wall around itself been away secluded self isolate itself and down then i googled jericho kansas to see if they're actually was one

and i found out that that very year there was a new show coming out on cbs for something called jericho kansas and it's about the standard is saying that you know that bit it isolates itself so i knew immediately that name was up went up and then i just started thinking somewhere this is where the lesson for a writer comes into play i think when we need to have something in for whatever reason it doesn't work and in my limited experience so far that mean something better is around the corner so i really kind of days off a little more and more imminent i don't really remember exactly how i came across the idea of manifest but it it is significant and different ways different meanings are going to actually secure event is what tells ebeling you know basically look it up and manifest can be a bliss of passengers on a ship which most of these people are you know i've come to america on a ship manifests now

also means to reveal or to make something known and now you manifest as this town of crime a lot of secrets are a lot of things that are kept unknown so when am when first read that definition she thinks of the bad name for this town but really that's what this ad tears as she reveals and makes known that the past of this town and the end of herself in abilene they people in the town so i mean it's a great name well again congratulations on being named to the camp was notable book list as well as a hearty congratulations on winning a newbery award from an upper manifest thank you again clare vendor pulls debut novel is move over manifest published by della court books claire vanderpool lives in wichita we did it is the setting for our next kansas notable book bound it is by wichita native antonia nelson she joins us by telephone from her home in texas antonia thanks for

joining us to tell us about bound and the double meaning of that title in the context of your novel well anne the novel takes place in the year two thousand four and five year period time when the bp hey you have finally captured and i use it captured the pain and having people in other in their killer in which a high i am i tried it then the tie i am i would venture that when he was captured and that personally interested because it is telling the one that we know about i think that the community at all taken place seventy four seventy eight or nine which is exactly correspondent atlanta life so i

think there is something about that that that struck a chord with me i remember the critically acclaimed writer perfectly for my old elementary school and the children who survived the family the children who were killed by emma that first murder them were at the thinking oh i have that and that there are many that practicality of the event and other various thing i think every day which the probably felt as if they had fun weird i do you know thick from being a degree from separation from dennis rader we will eventually caught that if you can't profit and weird way for me and them anyway in the novel a middle aged woman is childbirth american older man and the novel opens with at the death of her former best friend with him

he'd lost contact and that former best friend from high school days at the queen judith woman her over fifteen year old daughter and how life and if only going to arrive in this woman's life that they tacked a moment that the key kate is coming back into into the public's eye and it was a way for me to talk about that let them indeed girls when they were young and while we're making it and arthur have flashback nineteen deadening flashback far from the very tiresome part of fiction flights take you make the flashbacks be more interesting by having a serial killer wander around in the novel in a way that that basically with a public health guy to a large degree by hearing the tk talk about is his killing the way he he had with the great effect

and life that was quite awful and then on the thirtieth you know going around being a coach him four third church deacon boy scout leader and he really had this sort of ordinary man the story of a life and then with tremendously awful you know he created after a flight home to a much smaller degree i think a lot of people leap you live in a private fee create compulsive wind and then the public and the ending and i think i left our hour great and actors that they have to live and that you know if i'm actually think that what are the orange and a whole lot of dogs because for me if there's a relationship between the thing that is that life and the things that are wild and dogs are you know embodiment been domesticated that that came from while the origin and felt that a lot of the book opens with the survival

of the dog in the car accident that killed the woman and there's lots of other dogs wandering around in the pages that i don't have any politics when we spoke last year your book nothing right had just been named a two thousand ten cancers notable book no nothing right it's a collection of short stories and much of your work is in that genre but this book around is a two hundred page novel do you prefer one genre over another for my own mind and they're all about i i love the art for military and i think they are you know they shoot my temperament there the novel do i have a little tiny attention and also you know i'm interested in the small moments between people meeting the church reform privileges that more than the novel form dead eye off a feeling now will really require and

five which as i mentioned i'm a grade and you can hide an absence of plotting a short story by shaping the life of that if the end and for plot much more complicated than the novel but the thing is why when a riot when every attempt to write my ambition if you're a story ends you were going to as you know a number of hate after the larger then then i will i'll write a novel on most read the novel i've written it i knew pretty early on that i could not raise short story because i wanted to include that be keep a serial killer and that initial theory that inclusion would have been about eighty five percent of the pie graph of that story and so they did not want to make it all of the story or even a majority of the story it needed a novel of the war you know the enormity

of that monster in every felt the novel is about ten percent about the tk ninety percent about the fictional characters die with a lot more interested in but everything began with a story from me and only when it won't be that twenty or thirty pages do it in a theater the idea of making it into the nfl added a welcome one hundred watt democrat and not on him antonia nelson is the author of bound published by bloomsbury she joined us by telephone from her home in texas antonia thanks for joining us we travel the big east for the setting our next kansas notable book east to union town kansas in bourbon county and the way east to warsaw poland life in a jar is the nonfiction account of three promising kids from rural kansas who discover the story of a catholic woman from poland who save jewish children during world war two megan stewart felt was one of those students norman canard

is the teacher who started megan and two of her classmates on their journey to uncover the story of irene assembler megan and norm joined us by telephone from the law milk and center in fort scott thanks for joining us take us back to september nineteen ninety nine norm you're a teacher trying to get your students interested in national history day right we will develop products for the years the union town high school of small rule high school without these cancers and these projects teaching respect understanding him the youth unsung heroes and they were all outside the classroom of the worst not a credit given and so well we were looking for some students to complete the national history day program and found these young ladies who were very interested in learning about the holocaust so many camel when you first came across the newspaper clipping about her in a similar was your first reaction actually and today with

a camera twenty third nineteen twenty nine the day we were in the future because you're looking for a topic something about the holocaust preferably woman and we asked him if he had any idea that a clipping that well yes the arctic looking for we started going through we found a nineteen ninety four news and world report article battle clinton titled other settlers and it featured at rescuers and one of the things the fed even if enrollment they go are two thousand five hundred jewish children from the warsaw ghetto during the holocaust i'm ed about twenty five hundred that have to be categorical and because after show mccabe eleven hundred even our history book there the movie about him if he really needed many why don't we know our story so yeah that's a canard if he'd ever heard of her and he did not feel he fidgeted we do a google search and we found one one flight damage and her name i actually did a google search yesterday when i was talking about

her end of the day there are over five hundred thousand right that missionary deferment so why don't we know about her or why didn't we know about her in still life in a jar the period after the war was considered to be a subversive by the communist government took over poland who were too of course and so where the next thirty forty years she was somewhat persecuted by the communist government because of her work at the jewish people during the holocaust and so i'll buy the kind the comments of phone call in nineteen eighty nine an ad he ran it was an older person in your story was somewhat forgotten history so meghan you and your partners sabrina and lairs embarked on this project to learn something about this woman in poland and i think this is from the book captures the whole project perhaps the best protestant girls from rural kansas rescuing the story of a

catholic social worker from poland who rescued jewish children from the nazis in a wonderful line and aged to rewrite the story for all people all religions all creeds and everyone can learn something from irene is great courage and bravery when we started researching there wasn't any information about irene of the late english other than that one website we found researching the holocaust the warsaw ghetto we're shocked and read your story than general to put together our original performance since the west bank about that play you and the two other girls that none of whom have a background in theater wrote and performed in a play set yet our high school i was very small and in twenty eleven the whole high school and no theater department job passion and a love for her story was driving an end through our research we put

together a ten minute performance for international issued a competition and from that competition we went to the dish or competition went on to fading competed at the national competition but while we were going through this process that we actually received an email telling him that i really still alive living in poland because we had actually been looking for her burial fight you would've been ninety years old at this point so we were tied it to find out who the lively and a letter and a copy of our script picture that i knew her and several weeks later we received a letter back from her david lane said canadian beloved pearl very close to my heart that just gives me goose bumps tell me the significance of the title of the book life in a jar i mean i would actually go in and talk to parents out of the children after she would bring them out of the ghetto share of write down their jewish parent named their jewish names their new christian names they're at and where they're replacement transparent of the paper and she played me

the paper and jars which he buried under an apple tree right across from the german barrack so essentially their whole life story of their future what were in the bottle these jars you do you do you once the war was over these children would be reunited with their parents one of the unfortunate parts of this story is that most of the parents were sent a trip like a death camp and so there was very little reuniting because of that most of the children were old enough to know that were jewish to say were not some of the babies and small children did not realize that and so it's up to the family that raised him to have given that information but before anyone took a child they had to agree to give that child back to their jewish family after the war again unfortunately what the death camp victory blanket many of the parents died at treblinka and so the families were not really united normally you're the teacher behind this

project made in year one of the founding students but the book was actually written by a third party who had no initial involvement in the project tell us how you got hooked up with jack mayor amazing story jack is the doctor in vermont who's also writer part of the famous bread loaf writer's conference and one day when he came into his doctor's office someone had taken ladies' home journal article on a refund here and the students and the project and opened it and put it on his desk the field of them know who put the magazine there but he read the story fell love with a call that says that i must write the book on your story life in a jar and we are in a similar story and so we began the process and i think jack been a remarkable job with the writing and certainly touches the hearts of everyone who reads an elephant moving story and also reads very quickly as you go through the campus to warsaw back to campus

that's the thing that really struck me in reading life in a jar is despite the fact that she helped rescue twenty five hundred children that every time it doesn't think of herself sam that's right we lapel are many times you're hero and she said i'm not a hero i didn't let anyone else would have done but unfortunately that is not the case the like family farm a thirty thousand and they just nine days before she passed away and make while she told and you changed my country you change your country and you changed the world only to argue a particular know she is the one who changed the world and the jailers a fifth of the great story megan norm thank you so much for siri your story and the story of her in a subtler with us thank you and that's what my thing i

think we'd like to share with you i really always wanted to share this with everyone the true hero of the story of a jewish mothers fathers and grandparents and the children themselves i'd been visiting with meghan stuart felt and norm canard they joined us by telephone from fort scott kansas life in a jar by raina summer project was written by jack mayor for more information about life in a jar their website is it reno assembler dot org we've got just enough time for one more cancers notable book on today's k pr presents by their manager is the author of and health followed with it an account of the nineteen sixty six tornado that destroyed much of topeka this interview is part of a k pr prisons program that aired in june of this year marking the forty fifth anniversary of that tornado but this helped june eighth nineteen sixty six many to peek in simple lead their city was impervious to tornadoes why was

that there was an indian legend that claimed or suggested that the hill on the southwest edge of the city we protect the town from tornadoes burnett's man is a man of the hill in the legend was that when the armenians were moved to kansas is part indian removal act of aging thirty a tornado hit their village killed many of the indians and they were buried on this show and supposedly the great spirit agreed to protect the region from tornadoes in the future as long as these graves were not disturbed however in nineteen sixty the city build a primary and on water storage tank on the side of burdens man and that cause some too morey of it as it happened the tornado and sixty six came right over the top of the man an interpreter over their watertown so you

call a coincidence or karma on earth take us back to that day and how the events of the day unfolded but they was gonna overcast and drizzly an income area and tornado like really until our for claw your gas burned off again very hot and very humid in tone the storms begin to develop west of topeka soon after that though the sparse course deployed as was part of the program in topeka several to brits now own insurer before seven car the final draft of the clouds south of dover kansas about fifteen miles southwest of topeka it was spotted her and reported to the national weather bureau office via c b awkward spotters the end decides what up what they get less of an ode to pm now the

tornado came over burnett's man about seven fourteen said there was so you know ten minutes or so but a little bit more amenable for it hit the cell clusters of the city whenever people that with john burnett's mound at the time was rick douglas radio station that you are un holds a direct well he was he was a disc jockey well known speaker whose nineteen years old he was ayala it ran they had they took their severe weather spotting responsibilities very seriously alerting the public and he was driving the renminbi or which was kind of a storm chaser unit and he was sent to berlitz man to keep an eye on the storm as it was coming in this is before the tornado i been spa and so he made the drive up the winding road to the top of burnett's man and by that point the other spotters that had initially identify the tornado much on my mom and day about the way head had left the euro so the buzz cut the top he

said it was like a buzz brown mystique and really see anything and then he saw offense go climb by in one of his colleagues he was down in the valley to the west of rigidity that are around a very honest those tornadoes can write so he saw around him initially realize what i was looking at was this half mile wide fall on the ground and so he headed down prince mohammed and i wrote a speech grab them i convinced are broadcasting live in just said there you know this is huge it's common in the southwest for the city if you're if you're anywhere around here you need to cover a noun that downed impressive for seventy page bailout tried to get up under the bridge which is work officer hathaway and several others had taken refuge lost his balance and was grabbed by the tornado but because by now to come up over the mountain was women across four seventy and they carried him about it a hundred yards

for dropping when he said that when he looked up and saw your pontiac bonneville with its doors flapped and like the wings of a goal to slowly drifting on the backs of the tornado headed east but imagine it was quite a sight another broadcaster associated for all time with the nineteen sixty six tornado is of course bill kurtis tell us about the role he played as the events transpired curtis was all at the wheel we don't really only tv station in topeka and it had received word that the tornado was was common and had passed that on to people he was now and him from the camera he'd always told his wife you know this is really serious and get a call center awarded to prom was now he was stuck in front of a camera after came over bratz man he was handed a note that said a tornado just destroyed the year the embassy apartments and he can't he said he could count on in his mind gage the

trajectory was it was headed towards washburn and towards where his wife and daughter were in so we say discount afraid didn't know what to do or say that would convey the gravity and danger of the moment and so on the sale will start crying but they just rally and just said you know for god's sake to cover a nacho maybe doesn't seem like that big a deal now but at the time it was very much a departure from what and how broadcasters typically spoke to the public and i think it made them personally made sure that he crossed the threshold and certainly you know like you know soldiers grab and people buy go through the tv and said you know this is really got a good get to safety and a deadly got people's attention about something that he did subsequent to that has not really been reported is that he basically gave a

running play by play as the tornado move to deeper into the city and a number of people i talked to said that and you know that was the key information that they needed when they are in the present the tornado was at washburn or that it was approaching downtown is moving through local and they acted on that so he played the role of the import more and saving our lives that day but it was a combined effort he would've had those reports of a one for the euro courage of the people long for sloan citizens are out there find this information and a deputy devin real time basically so that he could in turn give it to the public the finer men anger is the author of end health followed with it life and death in a kansas tornado the rest of the program on the topeka tornado as nineteen sixty six is archived at our website k pr that kay you that edu seven down eight to go on that two thousand

eleven kansas notable books list i'm kate mcintyre join mean next week as we look at the rest of the books honored by the center for the book at the state library of kansas you can find the titles and authors of all seven of these books at our website again that addresses k pr that kay you that edu a special thanks to marianne eichelberger director of the newton public library kbr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas