Kansas Notable Books, Part I

if you're looking for the perfect gift for the readers on your christmas list consider kansas notable i'm kate mcintyre and today i'm at our present a look at the best books written by kansans or about kansas each year the kansas center for the book at the state library of kansas takes its favorites fiction nonfiction poetry young adult literature there's even a children's number but on this year's list we'll talk to seven of the fifteen candles notable authors today join us for the rest of them our next week's kbr prisons will start with what is easily the funniest book and the cancer's notables list carter finally gets it a young adult novel by brian crawford brown grew up in kansas city he joins us by phone from new york city branch great welcome and thanks for joining us today the main character iain carter finally gets eight is our high school freshman well carter sal well what is it based

on me and my group of friends from when we were transitioning from junior high to high school and odd these guys are our like any other fourteen year old boys there are around your precocious if you will and they're very focused on singular thing and they sometimes get lost in some of the details but they are hollow heart and they mean well and that and they worked really hard at and anything that jumped out in front of the ad for girl parties sarah lost mostly girls all all things really backed the girls' whether it's doing well in school doing well in sports going to party the only reason for that is girls said you know the book on the back has a barge morning the spill contained lead humor underage drinking illicit fantasizing and very bad decision making the premises of all

yeah we wait we'll be informed when need informed readers that thought that this is not your typical why a book we are the firm got a lot lot of bad vision and yolande humor in it is they're on the phone off the one i want i deal with these boys and align with a youth have not found you know overly lifted un and and there are situations where we're drinking my my character doesn't quite get it at that point to why anyone would consumer poison that would potentially cause you have ahmed and the need to act really irresponsible and stupid but the buttermilk and really into it so he's really dealing with that brent could you read an excerpt from carter finally gets that they kind of captures his character in some of the situations he finds himself in sure i'd love to i wanna pull from affection about the middle of the book and i

found it in its toll on the girl thing now and a plum i give the awful awful lot at it if it's called the oud the triple p of the proven player philosophy and send them and i picked up another thing in your kitty of the single man in my twenties and i'd give it to a quarter as a freshman high school which is a very dangerous time he has an older sister that a mentor to him as that i did my my older sister the reef specialist and kansas city kansas and she the one actually pitched the idea for this book to me in my nose my future when the schneider you do what she says and so i wrote an entire book all furious because she told me to focus robert aldrich's women wife of girls and it's based on an eating philosophy that is we're attracted to that which retreat from us and so it's basically i am i would walk up to you and i would feel like i love your shoe where'd you get those

and that you're responding to my response i would simply nothing very interested in what are staying and so by my lack of interest you are therefore drawn closer to me and trying to figure out why in the world are you blowing me off the shelf and i did it and he uses it in a totally work in a frenzy what will would have that and to explain it with friends and they tried and of the big over the death of one of his friends trying it out at an arcade i don't think the deal go through that though the disparities chicken to his mom comes into thought we think it over for a second role to dive back into his head and breaks or ms pac man machine oh a slowdown to roll it didn't hear me but i would make a movie a wing man follows we walked with a group of girls with great purpose i cannot believe are doing that not in flying a plane or my heart of my throat if i have the talk of voters on the store et on the other hand the picture of determination purity is changing at all because i look like wolverine just before the cars come out to get somebody that really demand just pretend you know like i say

i got a girl you just heard the pure focus it was a question i think he replied review i have for good measure an agreeable i think from a particular wing man i thought we would chat for an hour so about what questions to ask and how to respond to the responses but we're just going for hail yes couple cowboys around you know we were all economists packed a machine like ok corral even make eye contact with the smallest one of the first time that online inflected pray avoid that killer instinct he's wide open should not the cute one in my opinion but i think it's super smart phones that would mean for him to get a better chance to face something cool and then when i get as much attention and left her friend should be stoked that i have come up to where you know if you have something to give the wing mentally or firewood ready to look up even given the nine mile he pulled the trigger and yell you think you're a buff don't you like that where you going with that excuse me for a potentially huge attack you think are cool don't you were to get better but felt with an

army what the hell is with your hair neither a bit of basketball that he fired one mean question after another of her you don't have a boyfriend or you continue if like his arm and fell fifteen killer if your parents have any kids there with you get the girl for the buckle and cheered her on the way or your friends or they just like counselors here to observe you so what in that understanding that this is a clear mission but i was so wrong as a wing man i've got my powerful destroying this girl to becoming more of a libyan with every question he asked that your grandma know your border issues and i dragged him away growth crying pretty hard and her friends are trying to console her giving me dirty looks to thank you very much the jails were not every girl the planet hated me and overworked when you hear this period i was doing what it ought to do he replies i told you to go to their growth toward abusing her in iowa yesterday after question can pretend that i don't like her or pretend you're not into her i clarify not that you hate her and

where she would die to have to have a growth what you can get away from when you walked about years of therapy italy got a shot here oh i don't sell but isn't that pretty much to have served for everything that happens to a quarter in the day throughout the whole book you go through their trouble begin to fight an actor then learn about a car with no instruction from anyone else the book of the whole area street but i actually initially started carter finally gets it on a car trip in its audio form and then after that reads it's gm he prevail in yakima rivers okay he totally caught the fourteen year old boy yeah it affected a job get the audi audio book especially one that wants a national award i think the american library association at the merits whether top ten pick of the year of of a good book

super honored to have that i actually am you know i am an actor i didn't get into a school to be a writer exactly out of quote be an actor and so i thought of no brainer that i would be the reading for for my own audiobooks and i auditioned and i was rejected in favor of naperville but and i was i was angry but what i heard and it begins reading i'm like ok i get a fine tune way better than me it's never perfect well carter moment yet record and i integrated know not ok they're not fred to suspend such a pleasure talking to you brennan crawford is the author of carter finally gets it and its sequel carter's big break published by hyperion thanks brent young adult readers have plenty to choose from on this year's cannes is notable books list including be beamed book silver sues by paul miles snyder of lawrence welcome paul thank you very much it's great to be here

i loved the fact that this is still pursues ruby red slippers it's silver suits this book is very much rooted in the original frank baum story it is definitely an id the way it started though was with the ruby slippers and i mean that was one of my los angeles adventures was that i met a man through mutual friend that owned a pair of the ruby slippers that judy garland wore in the film and it was so shocking she's a minister neighbor owns the ruby slippers and i thought oh well tam in a way so you know it's likely actually so we had a dinner one night and she said does go over and take a look at them he's got them here in his condition into a soap we did it and i remember sort of staring at them and my job was a bit on the floor and it i was wondering why was having a sort of visceral strange and wonderful reaction to it i mean they're there nineteen thirties palms that have sequins on them they're just you know cool move issues that are worth a fortune and that they're very desirable a nicotine but they're not real and then my mind started to think about well what if they

were real and what if you put one on right now and actually worked and it was a witch's show and it had the power and the it's the genesis of the story and then i kept thinking well it wouldn't have been the nineteen thirty nine mgm shoe it would have been the silver should because the story came from l frank baum and i start to think well why would he have written a children's story about oz of the really existed and why would he have presented the information to the public in that way so i can't believe this was a year long process of me to sort of thinking about this idea before i ever sat down and wrote a word and they're come just poured out of me when i finally decided you know the stories not going to go away i needed talent so i did let's back up and talk about the book itself to the main character is a sixth grader at young gardener tell us a little bit about how he gets started on this adventure quite by accident and donald and for those of you that think that you have to be a big pause fan or nas aficionados or of revenue the books it's not it's not a k style doesn't know much beyond he's seen the movie probably he's an average you know kid i say kids but he's you

know eleven ish going on twelve and he's he's at that age where you're just about to not believe in anything anymore new becoming more practical and more debt than more cool and less about the experience of wonder but he has are they so so clever boring summer vacation and oddly he wished it would have been something really cool before he started sixth grade year and make the drug he's driving through the state of kansas with his parents and they pull off the road just a gas station that very quickly and down his dad was into the storm while he's inside donald and his mother are approached by this woman to serve mysterious woman who offers to sell them a silver shoe on the side of the road and she looks at it for a little bit mysterious a little desperate and the mother collects antiques over so she agrees to buy actually thinks it's kind of interesting image doesn't really understand what it is it just looks fascinating to her daughter's mother requires the shoe and it stars of its a very simple beginning to the story

and then he answered taking the shoe in for show and tell at the beginning of school year and that one little girl in the classes was like one of the wizard of oz she was a sober show and he argues with aron says one of those or read they were really anxious and the teacher it intervenes and says well not in the book have you read the book because there were solver shoes and later two of his buddies and dare him to try it on and down that's when the beginning of the story starts unravel at that point let me have you read that theme oh sure it fits shouted chris can you stand up in a ball rose to his feet and stared down and curiously but she looked ridiculous to him he slowly shook his head from side to side and disapprove oh who would wear such a weird looking donald's word suddenly caught in his throat as he felt the smallest vibrations during his toes quo he whispered the sensation was growing stronger moving gradually up his left leg now followed by the surprising overwhelming fear of despair what's another donnie as john innocently the doll couldn't explain it he felt himself being

pulled deeper into a very cold dark place and before he can answer at the three boys simultaneously gazed up at the sky the sun was getting behind a group of oddly shaped clouds with imagining this the clouds began to fan out and spread across the horizon it was now slightly but uncomfortably different than it had been a moment earlier the wind had picked up around them as well and donald could hear the rustling through tall grass in the empty field next to them a few chris believes the first of the season crackled and circle around them gently in a bizarre agitated dance everything felt suddenly alive than double came to his senses and found his voice again i i don't know he replied i think something just happened three boys stood in silence as they did their best to grasp the subtle shift in their surroundings after moment donald sat down again slip the silver shoe off and placed in the back and side the crumpled bag his heart was pounding let's get out of here suggested chris enough of this voodoo yeah i think we do go home now john agreed a bit

nervously doll tied to secure backup in record time jumped to his feet and started running down the sidewalk after them paul talk to me about the role of whether in this book and there's a really a resting illustration on the front of us big storm become an ally highway yeah i think there are a couple reasons i get that i get to talk about the role of weather weather has always fascinated me in general especially growing up in kansas it represents something that's about to change to mayor summits on the brink of change years in the process of changing and i think that in a way you know one in this segment we read about donald trump an issue and something shifted in the leaves are circling around and it's a little subtle hint that things are calming the weather shifting i love that as a symbol in the book the tornado on the front of the cover also i mean without giving much plot away their hit it represents a scene of very fast scene in the book that takes place off those off of a main highway in kansas i am at that point when it starts coming after them

i am the other reason i should say i put it on the cover was an instant identifier i mean if you put the words silver shoes on a book and just put some guy you've never heard of that road it underneath it it's as though the fashion book i mean is it if you put something it also didn't want to show the shooters and people vastly didn't when she put the shoes on the cover the book i thought it was very important that you as you read the book there at you know these shoes don't look like any other issues that people have seen before that very strange looking they have carvings on them that people don't understand what they are which is also a plot point and i thought of i showed them i was being a little too literal i wanted people as dick obsess over them and the characters i should say in the story and i wanted the readers to serve imagine what these shoes actually looked like them what you know and think oh that's so i thought i'm going to put the words silver shoes on what iconic imagery can i show on the book cover the olympic people see the word sober shoes and see a tornado they're good subconsciously or even consciously draw the connection to the wizard of oz hopefully when they get there and then i thought that was a good

cool way of sort of instant recognition paul snider of lawrence is the author of silver issues paul thanks for coming in today oh you thank you it's been a pleasure there are actually two shoe themed books on the canvas notable book list this year silver shoes and our next book the blues to buy rubber town late at shawnee mission welcome roderick tell us about the blues to blue shoes the issue but i didn't know what it looked like in tokyo illustrator can wind and showed me how it should look like the novel it's set in a little to make believe town in some mountain village called aftermath and the shoemaker has created his masterpiece and no one can wear the shoe doesn't seem to fit anyone and no one knows where it came from but it seems to be encrusted with jewels and everybody wants to own it started as a bedtime

story for my wife who often as for these things well i didn't have to get very far fortunately because my voice i don't know if you can tell on the radio or he's already previewed his sleep but is very somnolent in so i don't have to go very far usually put my wife to sleep with them she remembered the next day and said what was that you told me you've got to tell me some more about that we've got to write them and i didn't want to because i was too busy doing important things that maybe can hear the quotation marks around but if anyone knows my wife why and who is wonderful writer herself and a taskmaster and she forced me as she puts it to apply the seat of the pants teenager and made me write go beyond with them to the amount of story that put it to sleep so that's not much of a description of the

pollution but that's all i heard when i started i'd like you to read that scene from the book where a mysterious stranger comes into town and demand for the police to be made us grow mostly shoemaker often thought back to that rainy evening when a weird place called stranger his face shattered in the cow had slipped into the shop at closing time what struck the shoemaker at once was the man's eyes which glittered with the cold blue fire whenever they'll like it the lower the temperature by ten degrees what can i do for you sir grill said yeah make shoes don't your grill did not understand at first the men had a strange accent a nasal tone and a voice that started with a grumbling mr shu as you said sure sure sure it's listless the finest

mccune one shoe stranger ignored him he pulled out a sketchy laden on the workbench smoothing its creases with his skinny hand one shoe that's what he wanted and he paid in advance row watched the heavy coined click on the word but that's too much he freely protest in the man's eyes held him the complaint a pig too much but is only one shoe i should charge or half as much now i mentioned didn't i wrote was not a sharp businessman north koreans claim on the ward thing to me said the stranger in a dark forest you an everett quote grow shook his head it was ten times what you generally we received for his work and only one shoe what could be simpler it was not so simple as he mentioned after the stranger had given girl the measurements he pulled out of the older person and to

get with the small can cling sound on the work people set fires tiny blue locals lapis lazuli to millions of turquoise tulle paris and sky blue quartz liturgy in the candlelight casting a blue glow of poured into the copper is astonished face oh what's this girl stammered this strange replied pointing a crooked fingers used to put on the show you is every stone leave one out by a lot of things will not go well so i will not leave any hope not one stone not a single one i promise stranger now that either the return we should expect you but he was already at the door and poking his head into the roll was startled to see that the man was wearing no shoes at all and in a place of close he had claws

was issued for him it will be my masterpiece called out as the stranger disappeared in the darkness that's robert townley of shawnee mission reading from his the young adult novel the blue sue roderick thanks for coming in today some of her having his phone all of the cancers notable books are good reads but two of them really stand out as literature nothing write a collection of short stories by antonia nelson and our next book the evolution of shadows by wichita writer jason quinn la la i will taunt antonia nelson next week but today she think when the light joins us in like a pr studio welcome jason thinks wrestling that evolution of sad as it is set in bosnia in the midst of their nineteen ninety five civil war and then in its aftermath five years later jason why did you decide to put

this tale of love and loss and betrayal in bosnia well the year the bosnian war was happening right about the time that i was finishing my undergraduate at key state and a lot of the media attention was just basically about how this civil war was very confusing and politically didn't send and it just didn't do a lot of good for the media to go into detail just these people were killing each other and we were going to get involved if not that just sounds wrong because i'd heard the news stories about the concentration camps the ethnic cleansing in everything so i began reading about the war and i was right about ninety five and then in the summer when trigger needs to happen the actual massacre and for the next five years or so i just continually piled up books that i'd read about the war and had tried early on to write something set in bosnia but it turned into this kind of awful knock off of for whom the bell tolls and

so i threw that out and thought well just this obsession that i have with this war and win i was in graduate school i found a couple of characters that would not shut up they kept talkin talkin and as i explored them olson oldest bosnia stuff started coming back into my consciousness and so i thought i'd go with it and see what happens when you put in there and i got a book out of it so so let's talk about the characters in the book themselves the main character is an american is photographer named craig panic he disappears and the rest of the story is focused on this triangle of people who are trying to find out what happened to him his lover he is colleague and his interpreter they tell me a little bit about the platt and where you wanted to go with this story of love and loss in relationships will iowa i started this book over ten years

ago i kind of backed into this into the story and i think that's part of the reason that it takes the shape that it does work starts all those years after the war and they're owed beginning their search for me and the relationship the gray evolves through memory and flashback i think of very first scene that i wrote for the book was the scene where leon breaks up with gray after she's accepted the engagement today daniel the guy that a parent and just as a means of explanation leon is a chinese american and her parents very much disapproved or would disapprove had they known of police in separate right there are fairly traditional family so thats it is not exactly an arranged marriage had the situation but to the father certainly wants to her have a hand in picking used to his daughters marry and then for me that's the core mormon the book was the first thing i wrote

and the rest of the book was then trying to fill in all the gaps between that moment and where i decided to start the book so the plot takes on that then that that circular pattern where i'm drifting back and forth into what they remember what they're doing now and then howard thing i can exploit the ablution shadows was fragmentary and i kind of wanted it that way to create that juxtaposition between present day life and how that often triggers hand is affected by our memories one of the most arresting things i think about this book is the title of it it's very i'm terri evocative the evolution of shadows what exactly we trying to get out with will on on on on a surface level i wanted it to be shadows being done for me at least in this book and a synonym and connected to memory and i've always been fascinated by this idea that as we go through life as you progress forward through life we edit and revise we change our memories of our

past to suit the perception of ourselves in the present moment and that kind of played into what these characters are doing they had this relationship together one point that they thought of in a certain way they've grown they've changed they've evolved another trend i think that it is a different way and i wanna go back in some way and recover that the repair act to work or seek forgiveness for how they think they had behaved at one point but then my publisher made some comment about it relating to young's theory of the shadow for whatever we claim ourselves to be there's this opposite shadow side of it possible that can cool we can maybe put in a ford quote at the beginning the book says let's not complicate matters but actually you have a wonderful quote at the beginning of the book can you read that for the cheyenne and tell me how it relates to the story it's from earth english patient and it said the line there are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace they're two

stories as to why that quote important to me when i got to my first summer ad there are graduate school at the nairobi university the jack kerouac school of disembodied poetics what the people want on a panel there was michael ondaatje and i fell in love with with his ideas and picked up the english patient and i had seen the movie had resisted the movie back in ninety six i thought i was a chick flick but feller was what he had to say on the panel in the poetry is read so i picked up the english patient love this book and it changed the way that i thought about writing and just an instant and i didn't do my thesis on the english patient i've spent two years re reading and reading that book trying to figure out how he did what he did so it had a tremendous influence on my writing but also it speaks to that the two different betrayals the lead grey hat in the book where he gets abandoned in the woods by emil during war and is that one equal to or lesser than

leon's betrayal when she leaves him forget all that we speak to those two elements and my mother jason i'd like you to read a scene from your book shows it's a passage where emil the interpreter and the two photographers gray and jack come across the scene of a horrible attack the morning sunlight was in their eyes as emil steered the truck out of the grudge and almost immediately there was the sound of an explosion they watch the sky for smoke and finally spotted the dark cloud as it rose from the part of town where india lived he didn't wait for them to decide if they wanted to go see what had happened stepan could've been nearby or caucus and he had to make sure they were alive as he drove close or speeding down alleys and through intersections he became more worried it was so close to home so close to the market caccia frequented to buy food he stopped the truck at the end of an alley that emptied

into the square where the market was it was pointless to drive any closer the square was crowded with people in the truck would only get away the survivors raw already carrying off a wounded as he got out of the truck and pushed his way through the fringes of the crowd his feet slipped and he regained his balance he looked down to see the ugly red smears on the street he stopped suddenly lost the sounds finally crashed through screaming the slap of ten issues on the asphalt the soft pleading of people in shock he stood and scan the swarm of people around and trying to find step in or koch are among the wounded and dead he saw gray and jack into the crowd almost him personally cameras raise to hide their faces as they stopped a photograph a woman with the right leg missing below the knee a young man may be her son dragging her away it was familiar and strange at the same time like deja vu in a dream resembling a memory the echo of an

echo in neil gray's voice pierced him and he looked to see gray stuffing his camera into his camera bag here there was a child agrees feet a girl the look on her face swirled under blood confused the girl held her own mangled arm against her chest she sat next to a woman whose blood still used in tiny rivers from under her body and neil moved his feet slipped under him but he kept his balance as he came closer he saw the infant on the other side of the dead woman eyes shut covered in blood take her gray said and stepped over the woman to pick up the baby is the baby alive yeah i think so take a girl to the truck and neil picked up the girl had to scream broke loose from her throat he carried her back through the bloody market to where they'd left the truck wondering stupidly how he would open the door with a screaming girl in his arms then suddenly jack ran past him reached the truck first and swung the door open for him to slip the girl into the backseat when

everyone was in an eel crank the engine and showed the transmission into reverse he shot back or down the alley to the next intersection and spun the wheel to turn onto the street he did not worry about the roads he took his ears were filled with the screams of the wounded girl in the backseat her small body sheltered under jack gray held a baby in his arms and at last she began to cry and we'll spend wildly don't expose streets swerved around debris the faint sound of rifle fire followed him he cut corners bounced a truck over curbs ignore the wine and smell of burning rubber coming from the engine finally he ran the truck onto the sidewalk in front of the building that had become in desperation a hospital they carried the children inside then suddenly everything was called the children had been taken from them by doctors and nurses leaving the three men alone in the entryway abandoned gray but his hand on your shoulder and squeezed

it felt like permission to breathe again they walked outside and sat on the curb by the truck pack of cigarettes was held out to me and he took one noticed the blood drive on his hands the smell he put the cigarette in his mouth and let the end from the zippo jacko about to him i think we set a record grayson i have some new holes and the rover jackson neil looked up from the street and saw a new silver ring hole in the back of the truck and realized he still didn't know about step in our culture we need to go back in you said yes they said they got in the truck and a new intro then slowly add back to his neighborhood his mind them prepared for the worst that's jason quinn melodic reading from his first novel the evolution of shadows he's a writer based in wichita jason thanks for joining us today thank you thanks for having me have been talking about the book look at what do you think your image if you're

just joining us we're talking to the authors of that kansas notable books the best books written by kansans or about kansas the kansas notable book list is published each year by the kansas center for the book at the state library of kansas you're listening to k pr presents on kansas public radio i'm kate mcintyre of nonfiction that is more to your liking you can find a wide variety on the kansas notable book list by next book a kansas ear is a collection of photographs taken by wildlife photographer mike blair of pratt he joins us by telephone welcome mike leigh is a lot different than the other books on the kansas notables list because it's a book of photographs yes there's a lot of this is not meant to be a photography book but what i have is a hundred fifty illustrate of photographs that can help tell the story of different things that happen seasonal unity of this year

so you starred in january does get some ideas or how you work your way through the year and how you came up with this collection of photographs we'll let people know me as a wildlife photographer for kansas wildlife and parks in the course of doing this project totally on my own i do a lot of freelancing as well but in my many years of experience about thirteen hours an outdoor and nature photographer in kansas i have come to realize that at any time during a kansas year of the things that you see in the ear an experience or things that tell us all right julia what were you were at home good question replied draw people's attention to just look around listen and learn and observe more about the kansas outdoors an eye relates to us on a seasonal basis mike the photographs in this book are an arm or just but one thing that surprised me was it's not just a book of photography

it's also your essays about what was happening or why or what you captured in each photograph you know they say a picture is worth a thousand words and that's really true is is that look at this book myself right now and look at any picture their you know you could write a whole book about any one of those things but but that the photograph really is kind of a snapshot of what was actually going on and then the flavors of those things are which you put them in the words i'm afraid to ask you this but do you have a favorite photograph in the book that would be you know that would be hard to say there isn't there's a lot of photographs in there that there are no worthy to me i guess one of the ideas that a big program crippling nature center last night and i showed the picture of the bobcat crossing where bob cat crossed that a lot and i actually set that up by a concept in mind that with a trail camera and it took me about three and a half months or three months to get that picture the way i wanted it and i was very frustrated i thought i'd be i would get it within a

week or so and in the cabinet believe me i have offered to cut his ron paul white walked straight away from me and i just getting hindquarters and i kept ryan over and over again that's not my favorite picture but that certainly comes to mind as one of the shot oh you're gonna make me smile when i think about it work pretty hard to get that shot my favorite pictures are always moves that showed the drama something i've got a picture called legal joust i guess it's just little segment in the book called legal joust where a bald eagle made a shock global warming aerial shot at a crow that had been actually in that that that moment of drama that's uc is unexpected and it's always fun to see that kind of stuff those are the frosting on the cake every time when you get to see not only legal way to get to see him do something unexpected

that it you know that makes the moment special mike return to february eight there's a photograph there that really caught my attention interestingly enough you know and this was something that i didn't notice as a photographer when i was shooting this picture was like he's coming in i was in a blind unnatural situation there but later in the photograph when i was looking at them in detail i saw that there was a board and a club like for whatever reason and that the burden to heal the normally on one side you've got the normal big web fluid and on the other side you've got like a chicken bone hang and downright paranoid idea hilda completely interesting to me that as place normally kept run along the water service to take off he seemed to have absolutely no problem swann around even swam off kilter you didn't you didn't then april taken flight he operated just normally as anything else and the promise of that story was that

unlike us who are blessed to have doctors and medical help or when a wild animal that has an injury which can happen in so many different ways they've got a gift to be able to live through and survive in a lot of times they do enjoy normally about their business i'm i'll admit that i am a petty indoor person but we think for your book it really made me think it to get outdoors more i appreciate you saying next day and i heard that many many times from people at a red mud but no they said you know there's so much out there that we never get to go see are never take the time to go see and you don't have to go to the hinterlands to see these things you can go to the city park you can do it in your backyard you know the i've got one entry in here that talks about the only scar on a black walnut tree and we'll get that looked just like a monkey face and when you look at a close up as i did with macro

wins on my camera there's this odd monkey face look on this twitter at and it's very very striking and there's no eyes and there's a mouth and those guys in the mouth are actually vascular bundles course they're called and those are the little pipeline that carries tap and nutrition from the roots to the leaves of a plant in back i also have a brand new video that i've just come out with it was kind of a little bit of a spin off of this book on wild flowers and one interesting thing that is in this book and the symbol that caught frost was something that some of your listeners will be familiar with this online not and that is where there's a certain kind of plan in eastern kansas that winter when the weather gets very very cold that night but the ground is dead and frozen long after the flowers are gone and the plants have died away the sap will rise up out of the gray only reason that these fragile crystal and structures are

extremely beautiful and intricate and they're called drops flowers they only last a few hours and you're really lucky if you get to see them and i've got a picture those inherent i've got an entry on glass flowers will be sure that the cell coming out of the ground right and that's in the video that i've got actually show show them even a lot better than this and they're there are other values you're small and ship picture here we try to get an idea where their colonies of these plants it's called white crown beard and you've got to get there just at the right time on a frosty morning after known before the sun comes up and warms and melts those troughs flowers but that the ground could just be littered with these softball sliced crisp those structures in there they're all different and unique and when you look at him and if you look at him with a close up wins or or you know you get right down in and actually taken an end and they haven't closed your eyes or you can see the detail and it's amazing the intricate crystalline structure

that's huge here and it simply caused by this chap which is you know which is exhibiting from the base of the stalk freezing as it goes and that continues to freeze and then sometimes of the colonies look really key life cycles in nigeria is very very beautiful to see all these details nature are right around us and they're so what's the usual a nature walk with a naturalist this is always fun because they point these kinds of things out to people you know that no normal ordinarily have any idea they're passing biceps great stories that are all around us and it's just simply the fact that most of us are busy and we just don't know what to look for and we don't know what we were going to live in india it really does try to encourage people to look at the beauty of this day you know her by laughs it gives makes fun of the so nature photographer

i can't think of a state that i'd rather work in this cut the tremendous diversity of beauty that we do here that you can have to grow to appreciate i've been talking with mike boyer his book is a kansas ear thanks mike you can count off the days in a kansas here but in our next but you can literally count it's a children's number book called one kansas farmer by a husband and wife writing team devin scaling in and korey stana sex killian corey grew up in junction city devin was born in fort riley they attended the university of kansas then devon began his career at that you i'd be debut in topeka devon and korey join me by telephone from their home in detroit a welcome greg barrett so how did the two of you come to write a number but based and teams as well as the other

publishers with amber prayer only the alphabet books one for each day corinna wrote essays for sunflower which is the campus alphabet book and the hunger for those things or work so well and i just roll over the country that then they started giving an accounting a number of books and i give them the national number book which is called one nation and so well we really obvious choice for the king of this book you know we don't write in now as i mentioned your husband and wife team how did you divide up who did what a poet a rhymer and i like looking up and i get a report that really well the way it should open up the book one kansas farmer and set i'm sure he could remember book a million different ways but i love being able to have numbers that are specific to something instead of just sort of random numbers and i had grown up in kansas korean every week and i wear but he remembers the five on the highway one kansas farmer in a field of amber grain looking after cattle we checked the sky for rain yeah the pita

bread you have a flight to meet one kansas farmer grows a lot of what you need and of course refers to the fight but they're one kansas farmer feed more than a hundred and twenty eight people plus you find the course of the fall in the area but updating the way that they used to have a perfect record a complaint that very next page that we'll find something specific for two two songwriters a little bitty poke sign at pratt about dodge city a prairie walt became more songs from to this very day thing about our kids home with a deer and antelope play a great story about the how the american people are actually claimed her royalties and rights to the fall when it first came out that turned out it was to house from kansas who were restricted glee and then kelly there's no fan or a full quarter of every year and of the book in the prairie chicken for sure and the illustrator done with that kind of view that upon opinion that are home now an absolutely love it

and that because we you know you try to integrate all the things that came to camp with each state had its identity i don't like if patriot feat burdett a you know flour all the things that one of the things is very strongly recognized with can't have that prairie chicken and i think they're wonderful creatures have never actually seen one in the wild which i would've loved to have that i haven't that i wanted to include them anyway and they ended up at number twelve and the counter to catch a glance at a little bar to think big and round they go to get the chicken account the twelfth prairie chickens look we're going through there and then lastly and i think at the core and i both really really fond of those pieces of kids and especially in central kansas where we grew up to see these all over the place for the what we use the number thirty you need to build a fence but hadn't got a tree nothing the prairie grass as far as you can see we use thirty post rocks just like the pioneers and for horses are dairy cows and skiers

and of course for the finest first governor a treeless landscape that works around the world they were going to build fences with lumber so far away but the family that they're just a little bit of the birth of the limestone it was soft enough to cut it cut the post apollo mountain in the air they would dr hartman from a neighbor still standing there especially if you don't sell to salon and that explanation and other explanations of the numbers are on the side of each page so it's not just a number but it's also a lot of kansas history yeah that was a lot of fun you know i had grown up there in the marley family had taken my campaign history back in fourth grade but so much of it i'd like just didn't remember and so when we had the opportunity to do the number of rockets were the alphabet book the characters began to think that i you may remember the little better and largely forgotten i'd never known to learn more about that they say have never going to do that with him really sad and

it was really bright stroke or publishers become a format that they came up with with the very first alphabet book that they did and we followed it with us is for sunflowers well if the book works on two levels there's a rhyme that works for a much younger readers cause rhymes work really well especially when you're trying to learn things and then the sidebars earned it was a chance to kind of maybe you're going alone for older age group and mcconnell being the second into flesh things out little bit more and i have to tell you i learned a thing or two on your side bars again i've been talking to devon and korey civilian they're the authors of one kansas farmer kansas notable book congratulations for making the kansas notables lowest your honor from one kansas farmer to sixty seven football games that's how many consecutive games the redman at smith center kansas had one when they became the subject of our last book our boys a perfect season on the plains with smith center redman is by sportswriter joe drape joe

joins me by telephone from his home in new york city i joke so joe you're a reporter for the new york times' living in new york city how did you come across the story of the smith center redman you know i was on a train one day going from washington to philadelphia and a brief in the paper about this team in kansas that scored seventy two weeks of a quarter of the sportswriter i'm also a kansas city native so i'm always looking for a reason to go and i'd never heard a semester so i picked up the phone and i called the school bus to get oh i wanna talk your coach and the first thing they said was here ears is home number that never happens in sports reporter julie i picked up before the top rider border you know got a little bit of ground and three days later i send rootlessness are like a christmas center which i think people

your listenership knows isn't easy to do you find a kansas city and drove five hours west politically and when i got there i was really overwhelmed by not only coach border but the whole town and there were token they had this winning streak going i didn't know anything about the fifty some games that we've scored on a lawyer but they were really talking about football are talking about a boy's summer talk about a place to get where i am the junior high ice school volleyball gold went up their authors' names grow around for two or three days are really just enjoyed myself tremendously and how i came back or i wrote the story out that the book out and right through the moto you're like a course of the offending the officer took on blackness and you know the front page is going to take this and you know it's a good

deal when sports stories make the front page of the new year but in the my trip it was the oss league with the lead pitcher in there and i told my wife in the midst of the phone conversations are called back to her message out there is a book in here this is really an interesting place and this story runs the next day everything i think his confirm my email blows up by phone mail blows up analysts folks and you know i remember growing up like that i remember growing up were placed that really believed it took a village to raise a child and it's really resonated with marian it because we have three year old son jack and we were in new york city in manhattan like a saddam from kansas city see from chicago we grew up in yards and leave it in the morning come back for lunch leave immediately go on a veterinarian and a rebellion an idea where western songs about parenting we'll buy my son jack the first hollywood four brothers felt and it looked

out back your image of eight this part you know going for the show you know everything sort of conspired in my wife was gracious enough to quit her job been off we packed it moves smith center kansas they both first weeks to months it was just about yemen we used to see in us down there be a part of the furniture been part of the scenery and really just listen to what i know i do not jump to the conclusion that here was the most gratifying experience i've ever had both professionally personally was a wonderful time down there we've got friends who've lived down there we've been there several times back and folks come up through here and so you know it was really really learning and we find in the community are boys absolutely sort of sets up why i went and everything that intrigued me about

the place and it and it goes back to my first visit there in two thousand and seven for the times high school coaches tend to come in three varieties they're either slick ross sorts for playing hard guys were overwhelmed and learning on the job coach far it was none of the above is a bear of a man a plain spoken with a touch of yoda like wisdom honest what we do around here real walls right here to explain in fact we do such a good job of talking about the parents and the community that the goal with schools exceed them pursue opportunities in the bigger cities crosses are probable cause stomach distant game of football from what he believed was true mission in life now to this is really about football it's said we're going to get scored on eventually and lose again that don't mean anything would help would go into sending kids and the life we know that every day means not sure we like her football rather the coach conclude what we truly believe it takes a whole town to raise a child and that's

what the whole lot more after i returned to new york to publish my story i felt my thoughts frequently returning guest mister i'm a native of kansas city not lived there for thirty years i've always found myself as but webster my visits more central kansas had validated that you but also click with the schools principal greg helps conserve what a director greg hall was born i understood the plain speaking and recognizing the young redwoods yes cheers and posters and upbringing much like my own that struck me is people woke up each morning and turning make whoever they came across to have a better day quite simply i like the coach barta to someone worth examining more closely legends usually are especially those has changed and for the right thing and are far away from the limelight code word already retired from teaching math high school there's a hunch round out in my quick coach variation in the living when his plants because this was but when the tide came in in

his coaching career with a suddenness of the game they decision coach ordered built a successful football program revered tradition and i suspect that a thoughtful worldview out on the plains of kansas courts was how and why i found these questions were personally another excerpt had signed something that i was really struck by what as i was reading our boys i am so i will freely admit i am not a sports fan i'm not a football fan but this is not really a book about football thank you jane eyre that's you know sports writers especially will go into these books and that the goal is to write a book that transcends sports least minus and i really what got me down there was the people what's the sense of it use it till story about values and hope and basically eleven patients in smith center i don't know how many people know this has the largest population over eighty five per capita it's losing population it's losing

industry it was a farming community sort of waning days are but when i got there in the first time in the war time i've lived down there it's really rich a lot other ways in ways that i think are very valuable for all of us to embrace that don't they don't have a patent on living well i think people in small towns all over the country know that they have a treasure that they're trying to hang on to joe drape is the author of our boys a perfect season on the plains with the smith center redman joe thanks for joining me karen joy with which everybody have your very well we're halfway through the list of kansas notable books and we're out of time so i mean next week and will talk about the rest of the fifteen books for a complete list of the kansas notable books visit the website for the kansas center for the book at the state library of kansas that's daddy daddy daddy you that case e s b that info again that's kate

see as be that info a special thanks to roy byrd director of the kansas center for the book for help with today's program and j mcintyre kbr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas