Previous Special Events

The annual contest is open to children ages 5-12. Entries can be anything from poems to essays to short stories.

Entry forms can be picked up at all Kansas City Public Library and Johnson County Library locations as well as The Reading Reptile. The deadline for entries is January 21, 2013.

Celebrate the 115th birthday of Melvin Tolson, a one-time Kansas City resident who graduated from Lincoln High School and eventually became the first Poet Laureate of Liberia.

Start with a screening of the 2007 Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters, the Hollywood version about how Tolson led black college students to a 1935 national debate championship.

Photojournalist Gil Cohen-Magen has spent a decade in Israel covering not only political and military conflict but also the coming together of various faiths. He is one of the few journalists to observe and record the ceremonies and lifestyles of ultra-Orthodox Jews who live apart from their country’s mainstream culture.

In a presentation marking United Nations International Interfaith Harmony Week, Cohen-Magen shows photographs depicting Jewish, Christian, and Muslim celebrations, many from his 2011 book Hassidic Courts.

The Kansas City Public Library premieres its seventh season of Script-in-Hand performances presented by the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre with a continuation of 2012’s popular female-focused Women of the Years series. First up is Claudia Shear’s Dirty Blonde.

This 2000 Broadway hit weaves scenes from the life of Mae West – the sexually uninhibited comedienne who became a household name in the 1930s – with a budding romance between a modern man and woman who share an obsession with the platinum-coiffed movie icon.

Brother John performs We Be Jammin’!, the one-man musical play depicting the life of the late reggae music legend and social activist Bob Marley. Brother John will portray various characters to bring to life Marley’s story.

Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg discusses her new book Needle in the Bone about the incredible lives of a Holocaust survivor (Lou Frydman) and a member of the Polish resistance (Jarek Piekalkiewicz) who somehow endured extraordinary privations during World War II and after 30 years met at the University of Kansas and became good friends.

Mirriam-Goldberg is a poet, novelist (The Divorce Girl), and certified poetry therapist.

Co-sponsored by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

Eli Paul, manager of the Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections, examines the stories behind some of the 200 locally made post cards comprising the Greetings from Kansas City exhibit opening in January at the Central Library.

The exhibit is divided into three categories: Business and Industry (factories, the stockyards, trains and trolleys), History and Heritage (local monuments, cityscapes, the American Royal) and Entertainment, Arts, and Culture (museums, theaters, parks and boulevards).

For decades summertime in America has meant picnics, camp for the kids, and a family vacation. But with the new economic realities, many children are experiencing a different sort of summer, one with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Brent Schondelmeyer, senior staff member of the Local Investment Commission (LINC), and Leigh Anne Taylor, executive director of the Kansas City Area Education Research Consortium, discuss this fundamental shift in our perceptions of summer - and what can be done about it.

Twenty Films Essential to Cinema Literacy

Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.

Depression-era movie goers wanted escapism, laughs, and romance. Thus the popularity of screwball comedy.

Join Rockin’ Rob Mathieu for an interactive and educational children’s concert. The hour-long show is ideal for ages 2-10, but is fun for all ages.

Audience members are encouraged to clap their hands, stomp their feet, sing, dance, and learn on the rockin’ roller-coaster of music, movement, expression and imagination.