Events: anytime, any location, all ages

Kick off the 2013 Summer Reading Program with The Doo-Dads.

The Doo-Dads – four fathers and veterans of the Kansas City music scene (Mike Niewalk, Matt Kesler, Ken Lovern, and Joe Gose) - deliver an energetic live show with the fun and excitement of a rock concert. Appropriate for children of all ages.

Sign-up for the Summer Reading program during the event and earn fun prizes by reading your favorite books!

Following the devastating 1951 flood, Hallmark Cards founder Joyce C. Hall commissioned artist Norman Rockwell to capture Kansas City’s spirit to rebuild on canvas. His words to the artist: “Paint a picture of the Kansas City Spirit that will forever symbolize that thing in good men’s hearts that makes them put service above self and accomplish the impossible.”

Bruce Mathews examines the inspiration for that painting – which now hangs in City Hall – and discusses stories of civic spirit from his book The Kansas City Spirit: Stories of Service Above Self.

As the Kansas City Board of Trade prepares to move to Chicago, its CEO Michael Braude traces the history, development, and economic impact of the 157-year-old futures exchange specializing in hard red winter wheat. It was said that more money changed hands at the Board of Trade than anywhere else in the Missouri Valley region. Braude joined the Board of Trade in the 1980s. He is a longtime civic leader and columnist for the Kansas City Business Journal.

Bestowed on statesmen, preachers, artists, and activists, the Nobel Peace Prize is among the world’s most prestigious honors. And also among the most controversial, as Jay Nordlinger explains in a discussion of his new book, Peace, They Say. He talks about the individuals who have won the award (Theodore Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Yasser Arafat) and those who didn’t but should have.

After more than a decade of intimate economic relations, China and the United States have become deeply intertwined. Historian Zachary Karabell maintains that while neither country is fully at ease with this partnership, the occasional tension over intellectual property, human rights, and regional strategy pales in comparison to the deepening and on-going economic bonds that tie the two countries together.

In his book America and Its Guns pastor and self-proclaimed avid hunter James. E. Atwood maintains that our national obsession with firearms is rooted in the myth that God has appointed America as “the trustee of the civilization of the world” and empowered its citizens to carry weapons as a “redemptive” practice. But, Atwood warns, absolute trust in guns easily morphs into idolatry.

The Force will be with you at the Library!

Come dressed as your favorite Star Wars character and channel your inner Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. Enjoy an evening of crafts (origami and making a Wookie puppet or lightsaber), games, and photo ops with costumed Imperial Stormtroopers from the 501st Legion

Appropriate for all ages.

Every other June Cultivate Kansas City holds the Urban Grown Farms & Gardens Tour to showcase efforts to grow fresh, natural foods in the neighborhoods where we live, work, shop, and play. This kickoff event features a host of guest speakers, Boulevard beer, and appetizers made with locally-grown produce.

The loss of America was an unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders were to blame.

But Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy argues in his book The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire that British troops were led ably and even brilliantly. The effort was undone by political complexities at home and the fervency of their American opponents.

Betty Ford is known for her battles with breast cancer and substance abuse. But perhaps even more than these struggles, says biographer John Robert Greene, she is remembered as a paragon of candor and courage, an outspoken first lady whose public positions did not always conform to those of her husband.

John Robert Greene is the Schupf Professor of History and Humanities at Cazenovia College and author of Betty Ford: Candor and Courage in the White House.