KC Public Library Blog
But, baby, it's cold outside!
I know it doesn’t really seem like it since the weather has stayed so warm and sunny, but it’s now December! Winter is just around the corner! We humans turn on our heat, put extra blankets on our beds, and trade our short and sandals for coats and boots, but what do our animal friends do when the weather starts to turn cold? Find out in the great books I tracked down at the Library!
Pinterest Contest: Share Your Christmas Books for the Chance to Win a Kindle!
From Dec. 3 - 10, 2012, the Kansas City Public Library invites patrons to use Pinterest to share their Christmas Books: Past, Present, and Future for a chance to win a Kindle Paperwhite.
Blue Monday by Nicci French
Since becoming a mom, I find it difficult to read novels where crimes are committed against children. Blue Monday by Nicci French is a story so compelling and well-written that it made me break out of my mold.
New on DVD: Bernie (2011)
Bernie, a based-on-fact study of a small-town eccentric now serving a life sentence in a Texas prison, will be celebrated years from now as one of actor Jack Black’s finest moments.
Civil War Letters Reveal the Aftermath of Quantrill’s Raid
A massive, collaborative digitization project underway at the Kansas City Public Library has brought together a unique collection of documents from 25 institutions scattered across Kansas and Missouri.
You Can Be America’s Next Top Model
When you think of the word “model” does someone in the latest fashions strutting down a catwalk come to mind? True, that person is a model. You can be a model, too, and you don’t need a particular figure to do so. Another meaning for model, according to Macmillan Fully Illustrated Dictionary for Children (2007) is “a thing or person that serves as a good example; something to be copied.”
Program Notes: When Worlds Collide (1951)
Some of the science on display in When Worlds Collide looks suspect today... but then we’ve had 60 years of advancement since the film was made. What still rings true are the ways in which humans react.
Video: Michael Scheibach on America’s Atomic Obsession
In the decade spanning the 1950s, the U.S. government churned out roughly 400 million pieces of Civil Defense propaganda. If that fact alone is not enough to make you want to “duck and cover,” consider the actual threat of nuclear annihilation Americans lived under during the Atomic Age.
Program Notes: A Christmas Carol (1951)
Every year seems to bring another filmic variation on Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol. But none of them has succeeded in surpassing the 61-year-old British version starring Alastair Sim.
Beautiful Dreamer
December 2, 1905: August Meyer, a leader in Kansas City’s park and boulevard movement and president of the Municipal Improvement Association, dies.
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
The sinking of the Titanic has captured people’s imaginations for the last hundred years. In the 19th century another ship disaster became a legend in the United States and even left a mark on American literature.
New on DVD: Darling Companion (2012)
Darling Companion isn’t earth-shaking. Nor is it terribly original - in fact, it fairly creaks. But darned if Lawrence Kasdan’s latest didn’t leave me feeling very, very good.
Program Notes: Defiance (2008)
Defiance could easily have been just a story about killing and revenge. But this based-on-fact effort is also about something even more challenging – building a society more or less from scratch.
How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman
Whether you are a beginning cook or just looking for a collection of simple, delicious, everyday recipes, How To Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman is a staple for any kitchen.
Program Notes: Munich (2005)
Thrilling, complex and troubling, Munich is one of the great films of Steven Spielberg's maturity. Lurking deep inside its white-knuckle action is an inescapable conundrum: What if the persecuted become persecutors?