The Girl with the Louding Voice, by Abi Dare, is a powerfully unforgettable story about Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who wants nothing more than to go to school and become a teacher. Her mother encourages her to continue with her education and find not just her voice but her “louding voice”. Adunni’s life becomes hard and arduous after her mother’s death when her father, who is in need of money for himself and her brothers to survive, “sells” her to a much older man to be his third wife.
Cross-stitching: the final frontier. These are the exploits of the librarian Charles. His three-week mission: to explore strange new books. To seek out new crafts and new materials. To boldly make where no man has made before!
I am a maker. I love exploring new ways to express my creativity through the things I create. I am often at my happiest when I am trying a new craft or project, anticipating the learning and challenges ahead of me.
Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Nadine Shookman has won our open writing contest on the theme of Bodies with her piece "Oma."
Born in Germany, Nadine Shookman lives in Overland Park with her husband Jesse and a goldendoodle named Oatmeal. She works as a catastrophe modeler and spends her free time writing, drawing, and volunteering in the community.
Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Kaylin Salmen has won our open writing contest on the theme of Bodies with her piece "Self-worth."
Kaylin is a college senior at Kansas State University studying food science. She enjoys being outside, playing dungeons and dragons with friends, and art.
Self-worth
She remarks on the scars on my body
As if they were dents left in discarded
College apartment furniture,
But these marks
can be interpreted like runes
on cuneiform tablets.
What a book. What a story. What a family. The Kurcs are a Polish family who will not let the cruelty and dehumanizing Nazi and Soviet rule crush their spirit.
We see babies born, weddings, and a family desperately wishing they were all together again. They feel lucky just to be with one another. We follow the lives of the Kurc families’ five children through the war.
About halfway through reading this biographical graphic novel, it struck me just how little I knew about the history of the Republic of Korea. I'm not a fan of not knowing things. This led me on a dive into at least a surface reading on South Korea’s political and cultural history, fascinating and sometimes turbulent.
Shadow and Bone, a TV adaptation of Leigh Bardugo's bestselling fantasy trilogy of the same name, launches on Netflix, April 23rd. Some are calling the show the next Game of Thrones. A huge GoT fan, I knew I had to read the books before the TV series hit the airwaves because let's face it, the books are always better than the show.
I’m what we librarians call a gentle horror reader. I’m fascinated by the supernatural but can’t handle graphic violence or gore. I normally indulge in juvenile scary stories or classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I heard a lot of buzz around Matt Ruff’s horror novel, Lovecraft County, after the release of the critically acclaimed HBO drama series adaptation, created by Misha Green. The premise of resilient and intelligent African American characters grapp
